


the long long road (started with us)

by Wino



Series: The Darcy fix no one asked for [22]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Darcy Lewis Is a Good Bro, F/F, Fenris!Jane, Happy Ending, Jane is Fenris, Jane just doesn't care, Mind Manipulation, Morally Ambiguous Character, Natasha Romanov Needs a Hug, Odin (Marvel)'s A+ Parenting, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), POV Jane Foster, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Jane Foster, Suicide, There's also killings, and death, be careful, but some, it's dark, there's a ton of OCs., there's also fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-26 06:02:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 45,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17740346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wino/pseuds/Wino
Summary: “Is that blood on my carpet?!”She jerked off the couch so quickly the coffee table in front of her almost smashed against the opposite wall.“...No?”“JANE!”Or: the Jane is Fenris AU nobody wanted to see, where Jane is a Giant Wolf from Outer space who just wanted to eat humans, where Darcy convinced her to eat the bad people, where they end up with more kids than they planned for and somehow Natasha is thrown into the mix.WARNINGS: Hey guys, so I want to clear this up upfront, yeah? This work is one of my darkest pieces, if not the darkest to date.There is Darcynat, although not much because, as I specified, the Main PoV is Jane. Jane is the real protagonist of this story.There is also a lot of mentions of violence, physical and mental torture, of PTSD and manipulated kids and girls on the path of recovery. If any of these are your triggers, please take exceptional care.





	the long long road (started with us)

**Author's Note:**

> So, hey everybody and welcome to my biggest and darkest work yet.  
> I've often said that cornflowers was my darkest piece. I lied. This is probably going to be it. It's long and painful, with a lot of Angst on top. Yeah. But I promise happy endings. 
> 
> I've put the warning in the summary, too, but I want you to take extra care if PTSD, Mental and Physical torture, Mind manipulation, human experimentation and violence are triggers. This work explores some of the murkiest parts of the MCU history, namely HYDRA, Red Room and Sokovia, and while I usually try to gloss over the worst, because I'm not here to give people nightmares, there were parts I simply couldn't without changing the story significantly.
> 
> I have spoken with a lot of people regarding these triggers and had my work checked over by people who have abilitations and work with traumatized children, disabled people and people on the spectrum to check the story was realistic and somewhat respectful, I hope I didn't mess up too badly on that.
> 
> This work is basically my child. It was conceived in April and birthed about a week ago, it's my biggest project yet.  
> There are notes below I would like you to read, especially since they touch the sensitive points I raised above. 
> 
> This project was born from a crazy idea I had that would have never started hadn't my friend [SinceriouslyAmellPadalecki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SinceriouslyAmellPadalecki/pseuds/SinceriouslyAmellPadalecki) helped me so much with her constant encouragement and arms flailing. She's basically the child's father and I cannot thank her enough.  
> Other family members are, of course,  
> [einar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/einar/pseuds/einar), who's been my strongest supporter these months, helping me in every single project. You're the best. Thank you.  
> [vindiya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vindiya/pseuds/vindiya) a saint who helped me with the struggling parts of the ending when light wasn't coming.  
> [caffeineawarenessclub](https://archiveofourown.org/users/caffeineawarenessclub) another courageous knight in the search of my story. We failed, but we'll try again!  
> [Artemis_Day](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artemis_Day/pseuds/Artemis_Day) who is Betaing this fiction and I can't thank enough. It's a massive thing, I'm so thankful.  
> [Shipping_Trash_Writer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shipping_Trash_Writer) who read this through twice to help me out.
> 
> Special mentions go to:  
> Kaity, who's read my fiction over and over.  
> Meilan_Firaga, helping me with plot bullets.  
> All the girls and guys and people from the channel for their constant encouragement. I wouldn't have made it without you. I love you all so much.
> 
> This is it, the story is about to begin. It's a one shot, so usually this means less comments, but...  
>  **I hope you like it. PLEASE leave a Comment and make my day!**

The agonized screams of her victim as she closed her jaws around him was a sound she _adored._

Her eyes shone with satisfaction as yet another human tried to hit her with another useless weapon. Such creatures humans were.

‘You should have run,’ she laughed darkly, watching the German man pale and drop the rifle.

It was too late, of course.

Her paws left bloodied prints as she carelessly advanced deeper into the base, her jaws still chewing on their new toy.

Truly, this was very satisfying.

She hit the first snag after having descended the first few levels of the base. The doors that had been conceived for aerial transportation and ground vehicles were no longer needed, and only human-sized corridors would be found from now on.

She growled in frustration, and more shouts could be heard from behind the door. _Oh, so..._ Somebody else _was in the house._

She had found an active base today, she ought to consider herself lucky.

She had gotten rather tired of yet another empty deposit. The so despised ‘Howling Commandos’ had destroyed a lot of her targets, and she was growing bored with the token resistance.

Besides, a blown up base hardly held what she was looking for in the first place.

She huffed, her body shifting to what her friend called ‘decently human appearance’, never bothering enough for clothes. This form was small, too small even, but it had the advantage of opposable thumbs. Her hand ( _her hand!_ ) reached for the steel panel that was separating her from the next level and pulled. The door groaned under the strain, and then creaked, and then was ripped off its hinges with a definite crack.

‘Wo sind sie?’ she asked sweetly, going as far as using German with the primitive creatures. ‘Die Kinder. Wo sind sie?’

A rain of bullets met her in response, and she laughed exasperatedly as they bounced off her body and ricocheted all over the place.

‘Very well,’ she sighed.

It was no fun if they didn’t resist, anyway.

* * *

 

“Is that _blood on my carpet_?!”

She jerked off the couch so quickly the coffee table in front of her almost smashed against the opposite wall.

“...No?”

_“JANE!”_

A giggle was heard from the kitchen and she fought the urge to turn and glare at the child. “Mam is in trouble,” whispered Ethan, and the other spawns giggled around the kitchen table.

Darcy just pursed her lips and slammed the door, effectively obscuring the view from the kitchen. Dismayed groans were heard before the kids resumed their breakfast.

“Jane!” she hissed as quietly as she could, and Jane frowned at the dark circles under her friend’s eyes, “I get that you don’t owe me any explanation or anything, like... I know what you do at night... But you were gone, _all night_ , and you come back caked in blood and leave it all over the house _for the kids to find_! What the hell?!”

Her ears would have twitched had she been in her True Form, the waves of disappointment making her insides twist uncomfortably. “It’s not my blood,” she whined.

“It’s not- _Of course I know it’s not your blood,_ you idiot! Lord knows we haven’t found a single thing capable of actually bruising you.” Jane was not sure whether she was supposed to hear that last part of not.

“I’m fine,” she repeated awkwardly, “I was in and out very quickly and left no survivors and then I blew the place up.”

That seemed to work out better. Darcy huffed and shook her head, but she was now all business.

They glanced at the kitchen, where the sounds had pretty much stopped altogether and moved to the porch. It wasn’t like they wouldn’t notice eavesdropping kids even without her hearing.

“The fact that I don’t have another couple of mouths to feed would mean that the base was another dud?”

“Yeah,” she snarled, her lips curling despite the human mouth. “Thanks to the Howling Idiots Hydra is becoming too paranoid. They hardly left anything in those nests.”

Her friend sighed, absentmindedly biting her nails. “Even without the Stupid Commandos, they have probably moved their experimental operations abroad. Not a single kid in over five months.”

Jane frowned. “Has it been that long?” She didn’t really keep up with time, it was of no consequence for her, after all.

Darcy nodded, her hands now going to her hair to tousle it up more. She always needed to do stuff with her hands, not even something in particular, just… stuff.

“I could run farther than our usual range?” she offered, “I can run faster than this. Maybe if I moved closer to Russia…” “No!” As usual, the reply was much too quick. “If we get any closer to Russia it’s… look, they’re ignoring us for now-”

“Because they don’t actually know we’re there,” grumbled Jane, huffing.

“Exactly!” Darcy’s eyes were wide and her skin was paling by the second. “We’re not interested in Russia. We just need to bust the kids out of Hydra’s grasp.”

“ _You_ come from Russia!” she pointed out at last.

A shiver passed through Darcy’s body and Jane immediately regretted the outburst.

She knew it wasn’t fair to mention that. When they agreed on starting Hell on these ants that called themselves humans, Jane had known that Darcy’s beef wasn’t actually with the Nazi but that she was too scared to do something about it.

Darcy had never told her what the Russians did to her, but if it was anything like what these kids had been subjected to, it really wasn’t her place to pry.

In her True Form, with her Mistress, she had done many horrible things herself, but she had never played with food for more than a few minutes, and not even Mistress and her Father had ever thought of torturing _babies_.

At last, Darcy shook her head. “We are not bringing Mother Russia’s wrath into our house, Jane. These spawns of the Devil you munch on are not even half organized as _She_ is with human experimentation, nor half as vindictive. We’re not talking two or three idiots, we’re talking an entire nation, hell-bent on finding you. No, nope. Not happening.”

Rationally, Jane knew that her friend was just worried about her safety. She had proved to be bulletproof, strong, and all around invulnerable, but she also realized Darcy stressed about the moment she wouldn’t be. The instant one weapon would make the difference. It still kind of stung her pride.

She prodded her friend with a finger. “Hey,” she said, “I’ll be fine.”

Darcy sighed and wrapped her arms around her. “I know you will.” After a while, Jane returned the hug. “But no Russia.”

“No Russia.” _For now._

* * *

 

From the moment Jane had struck a deal with Darcy Lewis, former street urchin extraordinaire and master escapist, she had kind of expected to be back to the Good Old Days, where slaughter was the main dish, followed by suffering and screams of pain.

It shouldn’t have involved teaching kids maths. Or changing nappies. _Or attending made up recitals._

There was screaming in her life, certainly, but it was mostly tantrums.

There were a lot more kids to provide for than she expected.

And a house.

A house in the middle of the woods (because neither of them liked the city), that had been restructured and built upon many times over. Every time they settled on something, new kids would arrive and there would be a sudden lack of space, requiring a few new rooms.

In fact, the house was now more like a complex of scattered buildings around a parking lot where a lonely car resided. It was decrepit and had seen better days, and its plates mysteriously changed numbers every now and then. Not that she would have noticed if she hadn’t seen Darcy replacing them during the night.

A part of her missed Mistress, and still didn’t fully understand what the purpose of it all was, and she resented not being able to simply shrug everything off and proceed with her bloody plan on her own.

But then she looked into Margaret’s eyes, in Ethan’s and Hans’s and Emma’s, and she banished the thought.

_How could she even think of abandoning them?_

She was a wolf, not a goldfish. Abandoning your people was not something she was wont to do. And it was clear, in her mind, that Darcy and all the kids she had saved from Hydra were her pack, sort of, despite many of them growing up and going on with their lives at some point.

 _“Mam, have you seen my shoes?_ ”

She sighed. That was what she signed up for, as big and as magnificent as she was.

* * *

 

“We need to change towns the next time we got out,” started Darcy one evening, over the sound of goulash being scarfed down by a gaggle of hungry teenagers. “Madame Kimmel recognized me in the streets and commented ‘how I hadn’t changed one bit’ since the last time she saw me.”

Jane blinked, confused, “Isn’t that some kind of compliment?”

“Jane,” Darcy said, “the last time I met that woman was over ten years ago. People are going to notice if I don’t get any older,” she blinked rapidly, “I’m actually surprised nobody noticed so far.”

“Could be the war,” said Emma, looking up from her plate. The thin veil of freckles she was supposed to grow out of had only intensified with puberty. “It’s barely over, people are bound to be distracted. We don’t even know if we live in France or Germany right now.”

“Nobody notices anything nowadays,” nodded Hans. “I almost outran one of the Nimbus today with Margie on my back and they didn’t even turn our way.”

Jane gasped at this, and so did Darcy. “You did _what?_!”

“Hey, don’t worry, Mom!” he threw his hands up in the air, “we were actually in the woods, they didn’t even see us. It was just a figure of speech…”

“What kind of meat is this, anyway?” Margie tried to switch topic as swift as a squirrel.

“We’ll talk about this later,” Darcy whispered with finality to the boy. She was pretty particular about powers in public. Jane could understand, in a way. Powers made their kids special, but not so special that they’d be invulnerable. It was best if they learnt to control the power in the closed space that was their property in the woods instead that where people could see them.

Why _she_ had to hide as well was a mystery, though.

With one final glance at her best friend, Jane accepted the change of topic with good grace. “Venison.”

A fork clattered loudly and Fred, their latest addition, looked up with tears in his eyes. “We’re eating _Bambi?_ ”

As one, every adult and teenager looked at each other uncomfortably. “O-Of course not,” Ethan rushed to explain. “This was actually… a very... “

“Old deer we found already dead,” Jane probably resembled a deer right now, her eyes were so wide. “It was a pity to just… Oh, God.”

“Nobody is eating Bambi, Fred,” said Darcy matter-of-factly. “Jane was only kidding. Eat your goulash.” And then proceeded to glare at her over the kid’s head.

Jane smiled nervously. Whoops.

 

* * *

 

The first time she had found a child in a Biological Facility, she was about to burn him along the scientists that had tortured him.

The child had been malnourished, diseased and was clearly about to die. Jane thought of herself as merciful in just killing him quickly.

Darcy, of course, had other ideas.

It… didn’t end well, obviously. Jane had told her that the kid, who was really adamant about not telling them his name, was not going to survive, he was halfway gone already. _She_ would know, her Mistress was the Goddess of Death, for God’s sake.

The kid had left them after two weeks, and now they had a grave marker with no name. _Great_.

Looking back, she could probably pinpoint the exact moment Darcy’s grand plan changed from ‘revenge’ to ‘save everybody’, but then again, it wasn’t like she had anything better to do.

It kept her entertained, for lack of a better word.

And yes, okay, more than a little invested in the little spawns.

Before she knew, she had rescued over twenty children, smuggling them out before blowing up steel with practised ease, and brought them to Darcy.

The human would provide them with a house, stability, love and a new identity to start over, once the dust had settled.

Jane had never asked, but Darcy’s skills in fabricating counterfeited identities probably stemmed from her time in Russia. It kind of stood to reason, along with the never aging shtick.

Mind, if Darcy hadn’t mentioned anything about it that one time, she would have never wondered. She had seen the kids grow up, of course, but had assumed that like the Aesir, humans would just… slow down and live as long as her friend would. The taint of death wasn’t as close to her as it was to the kids’, now that she thought of it a bit longer.

Besides, it wasn’t like the kids weren’t special, too. Between speed and strength- she had seen telekinesis once- she had kind of underestimated mortality. And it was easy to, with Hans speeding through the forest as fast as she was, a feat only her Mistress had accomplished back in the day, and Margie just poofing around.

She guessed they were all lucky Darcy had some kind of experience with the hidey stuff, because she’d never been one for subtlety, or an expert on humans.

Her paws scraped the ground harshly, and she puffed up, ready for battle.

The cyrillic letters proclaiming that this place was under control of ‘Red Room’ barely registered in her mind. It wasn’t technically Russia, just Poland. So.

The shouting started a few minutes later.

‘Come, humans, show me what you’re hiding here,’ she growled.

* * *

 

True to what Darcy had said, the Russians (even if technically in Poland) were much better than the Germans at what they were doing.

For this reason, Jane took extra care to check that everybody inside was dead before actually using gasoline instead of just simply exploding some cars.

There was no need to be found out. Next time she went after these… well, she supposed she could liken them to bees… she had to plan it more carefully.

It wouldn’t do if Darcy went ballistic on her for _actual reasons_.

She grabbed the last of the papers she had collected, something she usually didn’t do, but she had roughly read something about ‘little girls’ and she needed Darcy to translate better. She put it in her mouth before starting to run.

Nothing was as exhilarating as running, but this time she couldn’t even enjoy it. She hadn’t noticed how late it was, but sunrise was fast approaching and she had a lot of ground to cover.

And papers to try not to digest.

* * *

 

She wasn’t allowed back in the house.

Again.

“It was technically Poland!” she hollered from under the tree she was using as an umbrella, “and it’s been two weeks!”

Oh, how she loathed the rain. Asgard had fair weather, and never had she been forced to stand under the rain outside of battle. Thunder rumbled above her and she pressed herself closer to the tree and hoped it would stop soon.

The resin was bound to never come off her fur if she dared to transform.

The lights of the house blinked up at her and the porch door opened.

A bundled up figure with an umbrella rushed out, her skirt catching on the steps and almost making her trip.

“Jane?” Darcy’s voice called from under the rain.

“Under the fucking tree,” she complained.

Darcy joined her, the umbrella left behind. “We need to talk.”

“Is this about Poland again?” she said suspiciously, “because if that’s it…”

“No! Well- yes. But not that.” Her friend’s eyes were wide and she wasn’t smiling at all. “I just finished translating what you gave me-” Jane’s eyes widened too. “It’s… it’s bad. Really bad.”

 

* * *

 

“So,” Jane started, incredulous, “you tell me that they take little girls, torture and train them up for years, inject them with- what’s that shit called? No matter. _That_ , and you still don’t want to go after them? _Really?_ ”

“You don’t know them, we can’t face them. We can’t!”

“Oh really?” the wolf that was Jane scoffed, “because that Hydra shtick ‘cut one head two will emerge’ didn’t work with the humans I slaughtered, I can assure you. No second head sprouted.”

Darcy gaped at her, as if that wasn’t the point. “Are you telling me that you exterminated Hydra? That you’re 100% sure of that?”

“Well, of course not!” She said, bewildered.

“Exactly! This!” Her friend pointed to the wall of their basement, which she had turned into some sort of operative centre in the last few years (it even held a pretty map of Europe with the location of the stuff she’d blown up. Nice). “With the Nazi, eh, who cares? The war is over, they’ll stop doing this shit. But Russia? Oh no, their war just started, Jane. We let one of them live, and it’ll be a swarm before our eyes!”

This whole speech was a truly confusing thing. “There wasn’t much more to destroy of Hydra, Darcy,” she explained patiently. “The Stupid Commandos had got some of the hideouts, and their scientists are in American prisons. Do you want me to bust them out and eat them? Because I will.”

“That is not the point!”

“Then what _is_ the point?!” she pressed, harshly.

“It’s- Tha- Red-” Darcy’s lips wobbled.

Oh no. She had noticed the woman had started retreating into herself a bit, but. “Okay, don’t cry. I don’t know what it is, but we can fix it, okay?” Should she go for a hug? A comforting pat on the head?

“I don’t want to go anywhere near that anymore,” Darcy sniffed, using her shirt like it was a tissue despite the fact that if the kids dared to do that in the house they’d get hit with a wooden spoon. “You don’t know what it was like, in there.”

Jane’s heart twisted. She had vaguely realized her friend had been a victim; even if she hadn’t noticed the long life, the single-minded care she showed with the spawns was a clear message. Still, the concept of Darcy Lewis escape master and Darcy Lewis Red Room experiment hadn’t really merged together. Up until that moment.

The more she thought about it, though, the more she was determined to see her plan through. “Darcy, you said it yourself that those people are monsters. We must-”

“No.”

Jane groaned. “Be reasonable. We can’t let those monsters just… go on with this evil plan of theirs. We weren’t able to save the first few batches, right? Right?” Her friend shook her head. “Right. But we can save the next girls.”

Darcy slumped at this, almost boneless. “What do we do?”

“We find them all, and we burn them and salt the grounds.”

* * *

 

The bus would be arriving at any moment, and the driver would probably be very surprised to find seven people at the stop in the middle of the forest.

“I’ll miss you all so much, so so much!”

Hans and his sister Margie were leaving, after almost twelve years with them.

Emma had moved out last month, and while Ethan had decided to stay, Jane had the feeling he’d want to see the world sooner rather than later. The house was becoming too big for just the four of them.

“Come on, Mom, don’t cry,” Hans blushed profusely. “We’re just moving out. It’s going to be alright.”

Darcy was inconsolable all the same. Every single time, she sniffed she cried like a proud mom.

Even Jane was feeling emotional today, which she usually didn’t. Feelings.

“Keep your documents with you at all times,” Darcy was babbling to an exasperated duo. “It’s solid and will hold up under any legal scrutiny for like, ever, we displaced a lot of shit during the war, and I have references from at least five people in town that can vouch for you, and just- Do keep in touch, yes?”

“Of course, Mom,” smiled Margarete, her eyes watery. “Thank you for all you’ve done for us. You too, Maam.”

This was all it took to get the waterworks going. Darcy cried, Margie cried, Ethan pretended not to and Freddy just hugged Jane’s leg, bawling like the seven-year-old he was.

All the while, Jane and Hans just stood uncomfortably, helplessly staring at the situation.

“Okay, no, go,” sobbed Darcy at that point. “If I cry once more we’ll turn this place into Atlantis. Keep in touch, and love you, okay?”

It was always hard, to see them go. Jane wasn’t one for affection, but…

She watched them go with sadness, but also some sort of pride.

She had done well. They’d done a good job with these kids.

* * *

 

Seven months and a whole year later, Jane’s patience was thinning.

They’d looked pretty much anywhere close to Poland, but they were yet to find another Red Room active centre.

And Jane had relented when Darcy had pleaded not to enter Russia without a plan.

She stared for hours and hours at the data they had collected so far, horror stories about the serum that worked only on females and that had been ameliorated and bettered for years and years.

“What stage were you?” she asked, as they drew yet another useless map.

Darcy blinked, “what?”

“Serum stage. I see they added a lot of modifiers throughout the years,” she winced. “Sorry, insensitive?”

Her friend took a deep breath. “No, it’s- it’s okay. I was stage one, so, yeah,” she fidgeted. “Only regeneration and long life for me. They didn’t even start training us, they just wanted to, you know…”

“Find out if it worked,” Jane finished for her.

“Mh.”

“I don’t know how I feel about lab rats,” Jane said after a long silence. “In my world, this would have never happened. I don’t know if my people were right or wrong.”

There was another long silence, and the wolf turned to see Darcy staring at her. “What?”

_“Your world?”_

“Well, yes,” she nodded. “Asgard, yes? The Eternal Realm?”

“Asg-” Darcy repeated faintly. She sat down, the chair scraping loudly on the floor. “You know, this sounds like a conversation we should have, like, had when we first met. I don’t know, I feel like I should know the stories you tell the kids are real and you’re a wolf from Outer Space.”

“Giant Wolf from Outer Space,” she corrected automatically. “I thought you knew? I don’t mean to be obvious here, but I haven’t been exactly subtle.”

“Right.” Her friend was still gaping like a fish.

“...Is this going to be a problem?” Jane frowned. She was hardly any different from five minutes ago.

“No, of course not,” the words were out of the woman’s mouth right away. “Huh. I feel like an idiot right now.”

Jane stretched carelessly. “No problem. It doesn’t really change anything.”

“It doesn’t, of course.” And yet it kind of felt like it did.

* * *

 

“Okay, what’s wrong?”

Darcy had been conspicuously subdued the last few days, so much so even Fred had picked on that. Were it because she was focused on their next target Jane wouldn’t have complained, or even mentioned it, but since there was no indication whatsoever this was the case, she felt it time to intervene. Just in case intervention was needed, that was.

“Nothing is wrong!” said Darcy.

“Sure,” Jane said dubiously. “It’s why even Freddy is asking what’s wrong with mom, that must be it. Nothing.”

Darcy huffed but didn’t turn towards her.

“So, this nothing…?”Jane prompted.

Darcy shrugged. “You’re going to think I’m silly.”

Jane scoffed. “I already think you’re the weirdest creature on this planet, Darcy, there’s not much you can say at this point to change my opinion on that.” She sat beside her friend and watched her move a bit further on the couch.

It was that movement that clued Jane in. “You’re upset because of what I am,” she accused.

Darcy flinched. “No.”

“Yes, you are. Darcy, I’ve never made a mystery of what I was. Indeed, I think it was the very first thing I said when we met.”

“I thought you were just playing it cool!”

Jane gaped. “Playing it cool? What the fuck does that mean?” She had never been ashamed of what she was. Heck, she’d proudly displayed her real form the second the human had crawled into her cave and had almost eaten her.

“I THOUGHT YOU WERE LIKE ME!”

Jane’s mouth clicked shout at Darcy’s declaration. The woman’s eyes were glistening with unshed tears, but her cheeks were red and she looked ready for battle. She had learned a lot about Darcy Lewis in the time they’d been together, and one thing she was certain was that the woman had a vicious temper when she wanted, just like her Mistress, albeit without the Asgardian strength to actually back it up.

It was somewhat disconcerting to see it turned on her.

“I thought you were another experiment that managed to run, I thought we were sticking together because we’re the only ones, and I thought that only we could understand each other. But instead I find I just willfully deluded myself into believing that, _because you’re actually a wolf_!” She blew through her nose and Jane had the urge to look for tissues. “And I’m here just, trying to wrap my mind around the fact that you’re an immortal alien wolf and _I’m trying to understand why you’re sticking with me and I’m coming up empty!_ ”

Jane took a deep breath, her mind trying to come up with explanations that wouldn’t upset the girl further, but Darcy wasn’t done talking and she was determined to let her spill everything out before she clammed up again. “-Because you’re this all powerful being and you could have just… eaten me and destroyed us all and rationally you shouldn’t even _care_!”

“But I do.” Jane interrupted her. Screw the plans, they sucked. “I care about you.”

“ _Why?_!”

“Because you’re my friend!”

 _That_ shut Darcy up. “Darcy, you’ve been the closest thing I had to Mistress since I’ve come here and I’ve spent almost three thousand years on this wretched planet. Okay,” she admitted, “at first I just wanted to have fun, and you were entertaining, okay? I mean, not even Asgardians stitch up from being chewed to death, but you do, and I thought ‘oh, that’s convenient!’”

“Was I just your chew toy?”

Jane pinned her with a look. “Do you want the story or not?”

Darcy hesitated, but nodded. At least now she was facing her. Another deep breath. “So, here goes. At first I thought you were convenient. I mean, you had your head pretty set on revenge and I was totally on board with that, right? Eating people and being thanked for it, sign me up! And if I grew bored of you I could just leave, it was win win for me. But you proved me wrong over and over again, and I thought ‘oh she’s just like Mistress, we’re going to be unstoppable!’. And then, by the time I was starting to grow bored - I went out on my own sometimes, you couldn’t keep pace - “

“WHAT.”

“- Aaaas I was saying, by the time I was growing bored with the resistance Hydra put up, and we found that first kid, I saw something different. Mistress had always cared for us, the soldiers I mean, I knew love, she loved me, but you’re different from her. You’ve been beaten, and wretched, and your life’s been a mess, but you still cared. And it was shocking to me, because frankly, I did not.”

Darcy furrowed her brows. “What do you mean?”

Jane shrugged. “When you found me I was pretty set into sleeping forever, just... sleeping. I didn’t care enough to live. But you did. And you care enough for every person you meet. When I realized we probably wouldn’t be destroying the planet I was already too attached.”

Darcy mouthed the word ‘attached’ twice before Jane became too uncomfortable with ‘feelings’. “Anyway, that’s about it. I stick with you because you’re my friend, and I’m not going anywhere.”

Her friend didn’t say anything, so Jane just sighed and left her be, gaping on the couch as if she were seeing her for the first time.

* * *

 

Darcy approached her the next day with the sheer determination of somebody so close to understanding the meaning of life if only given another clue. Jane found it almost funny, the way her brows were knitted together and her nails had obvious signs of biting. Then she remembered that she was the one in the dog house for no reason at all apart from existing apparently, and her annoyance at the injustice of it all surfaced once again.

“What?” she said warily. “If you say nothing I swear-”

“I have questions.” Darcy said very quickly, and this didn’t reassure Jane any.

“What about?” she asked. “I hope it’s not feelings because I’m not going there again, I think I laid it out pretty well yesterday.”

“No-Well, yes, also that. I understand if you don’t want to talk about it again, though.”

Jane groaned. Yeah, no, she wasn’t going to expose herself again, that had been the most she’d been willing to share about her inner workings thank you very much, and she’d done it only because Darcy was her only friend. Had it been anyone else, she would have sent them far, far away already. “I really, really don’t.”

Her friend winced. “Yeah, I thought so.”

“Ask, Darcy,” she said, finally, “but don’t expect me to answer.”

Darcy nodded quickly and sat down with her, which, Jane noted, was already closer than she’d been until a day ago. “So, Asgard.” “Asgard.”

“Why were you banished?”

“I told you, the Allfather decided Mistress and her army were dangerous, Mistress was cast away and our troops destroyed.”

“...Did you kill many Asgardians?” There was some kind of hesitancy in the question that Jane didn’t fully understand.

She frowned. “Not when I worked with them. You don’t kill your allies. Soldiers need to be taken care of, not eat.”

Darcy nodded, but then gulped. “Why did you not kill us all? I mean, you’ve showed time and time again that we humans don’t even make a scratch to you, and three thousand years ago we were bound to be weaker.”

The wolf winced. “I did, for a time, but,” she admitted. “I feared Heimdall would tell the Allfather, and that somebody would be sent to finish me.”

Darcy’s eyes widened. “Oh. Why didn’t they? I mean- sorry, that’s-”

“I don’t know.” Jane shrugged. The mind of Odin was a mystery to her, she would never be able to understand him. “I like to think it was because Mistress loved me and her Father loved her.”

“I… I see.”

“No you don’t,” snorted Jane, “I don’t see it either. I thought I was done for. And in a way I am, stuck on this little ball of a rock, so far away from home.”

Darcy started a bit. “I do owe you an apology, Jane.”

Probably. “What about?” “All these years, I thought you were making Mistress up, I’m sorry. You must miss her so.” “Sometimes,” she confessed. “But you miss your family as well, and Mistress was the only one I had.”

Darcy edged closer and Jane tensed a bit, before relaxing when her friend put a hand on her shoulder. “But you’re not alone anymore, right? You have us, right? And we’re a team. We’re taking Red Room down together and salt the ground, right?”

Jane smirked slightly. “Of course, we can’t let them go around much longer now, can we?”

* * *

 

They didn’t touch on the Red Room topic for a long time, and Jane almost forgot about it all, caught in the midst of a post-war cleanup that had rapidly decimated the remaining Nazi cells, until one day, their wobbly car entered the clearing in the woods in front of the house and Darcy strode out like a woman on a mission.

Jane hastily dropped the towel she was holding, ignoring Ethan’s complaints as one of the dishes he was handing her smashed on the floor, and rushed to her friend. “What’s wrong?”

“Found a lead,” Darcy said, her face stony, “and it’s genuine.”

 _At last._ The wolf’s smile widened dangerously. “Do tell.”

* * *

 

The first few raids were of no consequence.

She smuggled out some more data to fill their information holes, but there was still no real lead to where the girls were kept.

The only certain thing was that St Petersburg had one cell, and that successfully penetrating it was almost impossible, at least not without being seen or a few casualties. Which they weren’t really eager about.

This time, however, Darcy tagged along to see if there was anything she might have missed (which was possible, especially since she didn’t speak a lick of Russian apart from a few basic words).

The tiny, tense body between her shoulder blades almost took her back to the Old Days, but Mistress had never been so scared to be out on the battlefield. She did appreciate the courage though, she almost didn’t think Darcy would actually go for it.

‘Almost there,’ she said, the sound of her wide strides and the howling of the wind muffling her growl. ‘I can see the base.’

The hands on her fur tightened reflexively. “Can you spot any guard?”

‘No. But I can _smell_ them. At least ten.’ She stopped running, lowering her belly to the ground so that Darcy could slide right off. It was really convenient that the woods were the best place where to hide a secret base.

“Okay.” Darcy took a fortifying breath, and then another. “Okay, let’s do this.”

Jane watched her friend take a gun out of thin air, and blinked surprised when she took out another and a wicked looking knife. ‘I have questions.’

Darcy glanced at her and then to the base fifty or so feet ahead. “Later. Would you terribly mind if I kept all of these? I don’t think you’ll need them.”

Jane laughed uproariously, the sound alerting the nearest guards. ‘You’re right, I won’t.’

* * *

 

‘Another bust?’ Jane asked, absently chewing on a leather vest. She wouldn’t be surprised if the lead wasn’t as genuine as Darcy was led to think, out of ten bases none of them had a single speck of information. At least this one had fun guards.

“I don’t know yet, there’s a lot to go through,” sighed Darcy. “Can’t you just transform and come help me?”

‘I can’t read Russian,’ Jane pointed out, but complied. She rustled through the papers carefully, discarding the ones in German she could read and handing over what she couldn’t.

They read stack after stack in absolute silence, broken only by the clicking of Darcy’s tongue and the odd dripping sound of blood on metal, something Jane was very familiar with.

After two good hours, Jane’s patience began to thin. “How many papers can a base keep anyway?”

Darcy blew through her nose. “A lot of it. I’ve barely touched the last four piles and I’m deep into a fascinating read about supplies.”

“Oh, now you make me _just envious_. This pile is just talking about spiders.”

Her friend jerked up. “Spiders?”

Jane blinked. “Well, yeah, I think. It’s Russian,” she whined, “but ‘Chernaya Vdova’ means spider, I know that much.”

Displaying an amount of speed Jane didn’t think possible of her friend, Darcy snatched the papers up and tore through the nonsensical words with feverish abandon.

“Ookay,” Jane shrugged after a few minutes. “Not spiders. Next pile?”

“No,” Darcy said. “We have what we wanted.”

“Oh, good.” The last piles of papers were discarded without a thought. “Now we can leave this piss hole and blow i- _Mistress be merciful,_ are you alright, Darcy?”

She didn’t look alright, not one bit. Her face was paler, the teeth grinding and her lips twisted in a painful grimace, her eyes were wide.

Noises came from outside the makeshift office they were in. Jane frowned. That made no sense. “Darcy, we have to go, I heard something and last I checked _you_ aren’t as bulletproof as we’d like.”

Darcy shook herself and took out her gun. “Yes, you’re right. Of course. Let’s go.”

The pair slowly made their way through the maze of corridors and small doors that was the base, past the stifling humidity of the boiler room and a series of armoured doors that made Jane’s nose twitch.

They were almost out, climbing a metal staircase that just screamed paper thin, when a sneeze stopped Jane in her tracks. Darcy crashed straight into her back.

“...That’s not coming from the outside, is it?” whispered Darcy.

Jane sighed. “No, no it’s not.”

Ignoring every safety precaution she herself had repeated over four times to Jane (and Jane recalled very vividly each and every occasion), Darcy sheathed the gun and turned, rushing down the stairs.

“Darcy, no!” howled Jane, trying to reach for her slippery friend. “Wait!”

But the woman wasn’t listening, her hands already on the thick metal door at the end of the narrow corridor.

Jane huffed. _Of course, that’s what you get by being out of the field for years._ Darcy wasn’t coming with her _ever again_. She jumped forward, steps were overrated anyway, and with her superior speed she caught up in no time.

She grabbed Darcy roughly, stopping her one second from opening the door. “ _Are you crazy?_ ”

That seemed to work, because the woman blinked twice and sheepishly blushed. “...I don’t know what came over me.”

Jane blew through her nose. “No harm done. But please don’t do that. Let the invulnerable wolf be the meat shield, yes?”

“Yes.”

“ _Thank you._ ”

Behind the door, there was nothing particularly impressive.

A small chamber with a desk facing an empty wall, a chair and a little lamp were the only things in the room, which was almost as tiny as the door that hid it. And on the opposite side of the desk, small and almost unnoticed, was another door, this one with bars and locks so big Jane was surprised she hadn’t noticed them before.

“Keys?” she murmured, eyeing the biggest padlock.

“Here,” Darcy said, gesturing to the desk drawer. “I swear, keeping them in the drawers seems just so careless…”

“...Indeed.” Jane wondered why Red Room was so unconcerned with the safety of the room’s contents.

The locks slid on the floor with dull clacks as they worked the keys into all of them, and with a nod to Darcy, Jane twisted the handle and opened the door.

* * *

 

Beds.

A lot of empty beds littered the entire room, the floor to ceiling prison bars flanking the stone walls.

It had to be a prison of some sort.

Jane’s eyes swept over the thirty or so little military cots, and then another set of twenty. On and on they went, with nothing more than a thin blanket that surely couldn’t hold in too much heat. At the edge of the bed a metal bowl, not unlike those humans used for dogs. On the other side of the beds, were rusty handcuffs.

It was then that she noticed them, the eyes glinting in the dark.

“Oh, God,” Darcy gasped behind her. “Jane, is that…?”

_She had to cover her friend from view. Right now._

There were five girls, young women more likely given the appearance, but she wasn’t an expert in humans and Darcy was living proof of how wrong looks could be.

Her danger senses were even more alert than with the armed Russians. This wasn’t good.

A hand grabbed her arm. “We’re taking them with us,” Darcy said with conviction, ”we are not killing them and we are not leaving them here.”

Jane heard her friend, but her eyes never left the perceived danger. Oh, the girls were all handcuffed to the bed and weren’t even trying to move, but she was her Mistress’s pet.

She had seen that look in war prisoners and in some older warriors.

They looked like dolls. Slightly malnourished ones, maybe, but Jane couldn’t deny they were extremely pretty kids, for humans. They were children and yet, they had the same vacant and dead inside look. Like the golems Asgard used in their vault, they were dead soldiers in the hands of now dead handlers.

This wasn’t good at all.

“Leave the room, Darcy,” she said. The girls gave no indication they heard them.

Darcy frowned.

“I’m not leaving them here, I promise.” She stared at one of them intently until she made eye contact. Nothing. “Trust me on this, Darcy. Leave the room.”

The woman looked at her and then at the girls. She shuddered, but then gave her the keys and made to leave.

“One more thing,” Jane stopped her. “I need you to teach me a word.”

* * *

 

The first girl came at her the second she was released from her bed.

If Jane weren’t so annoyed at having to fight a child, she’d actually be impressed. It was the best form she’d seen in a trained soldier she fought in a while. The girl was fast and accurate in her strikes, like a mad little snake.

“Stand down, girl,” she said in her best authoritative voice, blocking her arms as the girl tried to reach for her eyes again, “you can’t win this.”

The child soldier gave no indication of understanding a single word, but having her arms unavailable to her made her react with unforeseen viciousness.

Jane wasn’t exactly sure how that happened, but her head was suddenly between a girl’s thighs and said girl was trying to send her through the air.

With a growl, she shook herself rapidly and just grabbed the enemy at the neck, forcefully removing her from her body.

The girl clawed at her hand, scrambling for purchase. “Just _fucking stop_!” Howled the wolf. “ _Sdavajsya_!”

The girl stopped struggling.

It was as if whatever strings were animating this corpse of a human had been cut and she was just… dead.

Jane lowered her to the ground, her other hand straightening her tousled hair. “Just… stay there,” she sighed. “Podozhdi!” she ordered, again.

She stepped back a few paces and then turned. The girl hadn’t moved, her eyes low to the ground as if expecting some sort of punishment. “Of course they’d be broken beyond any recognition,” she grumbled. “We’re going to need a lot more room now.”

She approached the next with reluctance. “Are you going to be a problem, as well?” Of course, she was, and so was the next one.

One by one they came at her, only to immediately submit once it was clear they were thoroughly outclassed. As if they expected death whenever beaten in combat.

Thinking back to the many and many empty beds, it was probably closer to the truth than Jane would have liked.

The last one, though, seemed a touch smarter than the others, or maybe she simply had better instincts after all of her comrades had been beaten, because she waited for orders without being prompted, just like a small dog eager to please the big and strong alpha.

It wasn’t a pleasing feeling, despite her being a wolf.

“Okay, okay, fine.” Five broken child soldiers. It was not okay. But Jane had been a war general once, even if the closest term would probably be ‘warhorse’, she could keep five kids in line until they fixed… whatever could be salvaged, actually.

“We’re all going to leave this place, and you’re going to follow me and be quiet. And we’re all getting out alive. Understood?”

They blankly stared at her, uncomprehendingly.

“Just great.” Jane sighed.

“DARCY!” she bellowed. One of the girls flinched, and Jane took stock of that too. Maybe they weren’t _all_ broken beyond salvation.

The door opened slightly, and Darcy’s curly head peered worriedly over the threshold. “Yes?”

“I need you to translate what I tell you. _Everything._ ”

And so they did. Jane would tell Darcy what she wanted to say in Russian, Darcy would translate and Jane would bark it back to the girls, who scrambled to comply as swiftly and orderly as possible.

“How are we getting home?” Darcy raised the problem as soon as they were out of the base.“They’re too many to carry on your back. Are you doing more trips?”

“No,” said Jane brusquely. “They can’t be left alone one second. Look at them.”

They both turned to the girls, who while expecting orders were side-eyeing each other as if trying to decide who was the most edible of the pack. “I don’t know what they had them do, but they’re not people- No, Darcy, they’re not. I’m telling you. You can’t fix these, there’s nothing to fix. Salvage, maybe, but they’re not going back to human.”

“...Are we giving up?” Darcy looked mutinous.

“Of course not!” said Jane. “But these are different beasts altogether than our children, okay? We’re… we’re so in over our heads, frankly, not even in Asgard we can recover our soldiers when they’re this lost.”

“...What do you expect me to do?”

“For now, I need you to find a way to transport them all together, then we’ll see.”

Darcy mulled it over. “I’ll see if the operatives had some military transport we can use.”

“You do that,” Jane nodded. “We’ll also need handcuffs.”

Darcy gaped, but Jane wasn’t letting five over-stimulated weapons in a small space without some method of containment. “Just for today,” she assured. “Come on, girls, faster! Davaj!”

Her friend scrunched her nose. “Your accent is horrendous, the Russian in me is crying.”

“ _You’re not even Russian_ , you’re from London!”

* * *

 

‘Adjusting’ was far from easy.

In fact, there was no adjusting, only a new military regime of which Jane, Giant Wolf from Outer Space, was suddenly very much the leader.

Now, Jane understood better than others the sheer need of these girls to have stability, but until now she had been content to just blow up stuff and then letting Darcy pick up the strays and that was just enough.

But this was a different brand of weird entirely.

The girls were entirely dependent on her, obedient to a fault and, well, completely pliable.

The first few weeks were simply terrible.

They were completely silent, but wouldn’t stop evaluating everything around them. They were always ready to destroy one another and even tried a few times. Twice already Jane had to split a couple ganging on the one that hadn’t fought her back then, apparently the weakest one.

There was as of then a firm rule that no amount of violence was allowed in the house, and for now, they seemed cowed into submission.

They didn’t exactly grow bored, but whenever they weren’t busy obeying orders they would go back to the sick ‘piece of meat’ routine, ready to overtake each other like a flock of rabid chickens.

And they expected to be tied up for _everything._

They wouldn’t sleep if not handcuffed, wouldn’t shower if not bound somewhere and wouldn’t eat if the food wasn’t given to them in that fucking bowl, and this made both her and Darcy extremely sick.

Darcy herself had poured over all the files they had recovered, armed with a bucket and some pillows to scream into, hoping not to scare Freddy and Ethan more than was necessary. She wasn’t overly forthcoming with the sensitive information, but had taken that wounded animal approach towards the girl that Jane knew wouldn’t help and she just wouldn’t quit it.

“They don’t care about the fucking plants, Darcy, knock it off.” It was the third time in two months that she’d seen her best friend move dead plants from the girls’ rooms and into the trash bin, only to try again with newly potted plants. “They don’t even know how to take care of those, I don’t think they realize they can _water them._ ”

“Are the plants harming them?” asked Darcy. “No? Then I’ll keep doing it.”

It wasn’t just the plants, though. The woman had started cooking Russian dishes, singing Russian songs whenever she could, and went so far as to trying to teach her Russian by happenstance and insisting she speak it. All. The. Fucking. Time.

Jane sighed. “Don’t give yourself too many hopes, Darcy,” she warned, “there’s a chance they won’t come back to normal. Ever.”

Darcy didn’t say anything, but Jane knew that she knew. It was in her eyes. And yet she couldn’t stop. Her attempts were amateurish at best, but she was trying.

Fortunately enough, the handlers had been so kind to accurately detail every single training scheme they used (much to Darcy’s displeasure), with precise information over the use of movies and languages and physical exercise. This allowed Jane to keep a similar schedule for the time being. The girls learnt German and English, reviewed their Russian with Darcy very dutifully and kept up with their French. The rest of the time, Jane improvised activities to keep them as busy and tired as possible. She wasn’t always successful.

The girls also only spoke Russian and obeyed to orders only if in Russian. That was another thing that ticked Jane off immensely. They understood English to perfection, but weren’t allowed to use it or even respond to it. They did well in class, but wouldn’t speak it during the day unless it was ordered with specific words the handlers hadn’t written down, and since Jane couldn’t order them in anything but English and German and Darcy still hadn’t found the right combination, that was a moot point.

“Ethan and I are moving the truck.”

Jane looked up from the book she was pretending to read while keeping an eye on the little ex-murderers. “Sorry, what?”

“The truck,” Darcy repeated, her lips a grim line. “The one we stole from Red Room. We can’t keep it any longer, it needs to go.”

The truck had been a matter of discussions for weeks.

Darcy had nightmares about it all the time, horrible dreams of the Russians following invisible tracks and finding them deep in the woods, ready to get back her and the girls. Personally, Jane kinda wanted them to come, save her the trouble of making them crawl from the rocks they were hiding under. But her friend was scared, her mind going to all the possible ways they could track such a big and noticeable black vehicle.

Were it for the human, the thing would have been burned the second they were home and only the fact that they had no rooms for the girls and they could only safely shackle them to the back of the container had saved the thing from destruction.

However, the house had new rooms now, the girls had their space and they were probably adding a few later on: the incriminating monster had to go.

“Do you need help with that?” They couldn’t possibly plan to come back by foot.

Darcy shook her head. “We got it covered, don’t worry. We’ll probably be late, though, so dinner’s on you.”

“Sure!” Jane smiled sarcastically. “I just can’t wait to let the girls have a go at the pointy knives in the kitchen.”

When Darcy and Ethan came back it was almost dawn, and neither Jane nor them commented on the smell of smoke or the conspicuous lack of Ethan’s shirt.

* * *

 

Four months into the new regime of dictatorship, mere days from the removal of the dreaded handcuffs to the bed, the house woke up to a thick, impenetrable five feet of snow. Big flakes of white fell to the ground, to the mounting horror of Ethan, who detested everything colder than a roaring fire.

“Snow! SNOW!” At least Freddy, with the innocence of a twelve-year-old, was happy.

They all watched in bafflement as the biggest snowstorm they had seen since moving to the South of Saarland covered everything in view, snowing them in and trapping them in the main house.

Jane’s back tingled.

All of them.

In the same house with no way to go out to clear one’s head or do any kind of physical workout.

She searched for Darcy’s eyes in the room. _If worse came to worse_ , Jane thought, _no fucking plant or power of love would save them today._

The girls, despite them not knowing any of their names yet apart from what Red Room called them, had behaved themselves admirably, overperforming any task without complaint. They were the perfect soldiers indeed.

But they hadn’t moved from that blind obedience state in months; despite the numerous, albeit amateurish, attempts.

Dare she say it, the little broken soldiers had started to grow on her and Jane kind of wished they could help them more, but for now it clearly wasn’t to be.

The whole day, any attempt at being calm and relaxed failed miserably, and her wired mood passed like static through everybody in the room.

The four of them were in front of the fireplace, Ethan even dozing off at the comfortable heat, but the wolf had always one eye on her gaggle of ducklings, who were prowling around the room or sitting in the odd corner, their back religiously to the wall.

She liked and those girls, she really did (well, kind of), but nothing could stop the tiny voice in her brain telling her that yes, almost pack was very much a threat to her actual family. She hated herself a bit for thinking it.

A soft whistling made her turn her head sharply. Darcy was at it again.

“I swear, Darcy,” she warned, “if I hear another note of ‘Bunt sind schon die Wälder’ I will _destroy_ you.”

“It’s not that song!” Darcy gasped, her hand going to her chest and her eyes blinking with fake sincerity, “it’s not even a _Russian_ song!”

“Yes, Mam!” added unhelpfully Fred, still grumpy about not being able to go out to play with the snow, “you don’t sing Russian songs in German, and Mom’s songs are amazing!” _The little traitor_.

“You tell her, Freddy!” said Darcy smugly.

Jane scoffed. “Of course, how could I complain about her songs.”

They chuckled, her little family, laughing harder when Ethan snored loudly.

It was then that disaster struck.

It happened in slow motion, so slow and yet Jane reacted one second too late.

One of the girls snorted, probably unintentionally. Such a tiny sound she almost didn’t catch it, but she did, and she turned as if struck towards her, in case she had imagined it.

However, the other girls had heard it too. In a second, the first girl Jane had beaten, who the handlers had ironically called ‘Eva’, was at the other girl’s throat, throwing her in the air.

Jane was at _Eva’s_ throat in a flash, but the attacked girl hadn’t been fast enough to react, and with a floppy movement, crash landed on Darcy bodily, launching both of them against the wall with a sickening crack.

Ethan woke up with a startled shout, Freddy screamed and the other three girls immediately dropped into a fighting stance.

The poor victim scrambled up from the floor, horrified. It was the most Jane had ever seen on her face, and it was heartbreaking.

Her gaze fell back to her prey, limp in her hold. Her lips curled, showing her sharp teeth and for a long, long minute Jane wished she was in her original form, right here and right now.

“We’re okay, nobody panic, we’re good!” Darcy coughed, trying to sit up from the remains of the old rocking chair she’d been sitting on. “My v poryadke, verno?” she asked the girl.

The poor soul nodded frantically and the rest of the girls forcefully relaxed.

Jane sighed and dropped her hold on Eva. “That’s enough for today, we’re going back to our classes.” She had the girls leave, ignoring Darcy’s protests that everything was fine.

“It’s not fine. Also, your arm is at the wrong angle,” spat the wolf.

Darcy blinked. Indeed, her arm had curved to an unnatural angle to her side. “Ah, no big deal, don’t worry,” she shrugged.

Jane gaped. “Not a bi- Darcy, _your arm_ is completely broken!”

Her friend shrugged, grabbed her arm and twisted. It fell back into position as if nothing had happened. “No harm done. Healing fast has its perks. This was about the best outcome, really.”

“The best outcome would have been no attack at all!”

“But we got a reaction, Jane! One of them smiled, she almost laughed! This is so great!”

“I understand your excitement, Darcy,” Jane said patiently. Truly, she did. She was happy for the girl, if only to give her a name that wasn’t ‘girl’, but she had to focus on the big picture. “The other girls, though, that’s some serious fuel on their fire. You’ve got to realize that. And their actions have consequences. What if next time they don’t go for you, but go after Ethan? Or Fred? This behaviour cannot be accepted. _It’s not fine_ and you know it.” Darcy deflated and Jane felt bad.

She opened her arms invitingly. “They’re doing good, okay? Really good. But you can’t let go now, now’s the time we don’t give up.”

“I don’t know how long we can keep this going, Janey,” Darcy went for the hug.

“But we have to, for as long as it takes.”

* * *

 

Over the next week, it seemed as if any progress they had made had been whisked away with the snow.

Darcy replaced the potted plants once again, their dry, frizzy leaves brown in the dumpster.

The handcuffs went back on every other night, just in case, and their contact with Freddy was limited at best. Not that they actively sought him out.

Until one day, when Darcy was doing the morning rounds to get breakfast to every one of them, since they couldn’t eat together for fear of repercussions, a strangled scream froze everybody in their tracks.

Jane rushed to her friend’s side and found her crying on the floor.

Eva’s room was a mess. The furniture was destroyed, the bed in pieces. On the floor, the potted plant was in shambles.

Jane inhaled deeply. “Only her smell, she did that on her own. She can’t have gone far.”

She herself didn’t sleep more than a few hours and the fact that the kid had left without her noticing was already bordering on the surreal.

“Shackle the girls, I’m going after her.”

* * *

 

She followed her scent for almost four hours.

When she found her, Eva was no more.

* * *

 

Darcy cried, Freddy sniffled.

None of the girls asked after her.

* * *

 

“I’m going out tonight, my small minions!”

The four girls turned her way, Ol’ga going so far as rolling her eyes.

In almost two years since Eva’s suicide, life had thankfully got a better turn.

Oh, she wasn’t going to play this miracle like it was no big deal. The mere fact that four out of five weren’t off their rocker and one of them was even verbal was incredible, but Jane wasn’t going to look this big a gifted horse in the mouth.

In fact, almost three years of inactivity were almost too much of a setback.

Sometimes, she and Darcy wondered what would have happened had they found younger girls, or if they hadn’t found anyone at all.

But there was no need to focus on the ‘ifs’ and ‘maybes’.

She was going back into the field, and this was final.

The girls were doing amazing on their own, now.

“Back to Rheinland I hope,” said Darcy, crossing her arms.

“Or Sachsen,” Jane shrugged. “But don’t worry, I’ve learnt my lesson. No Russia _or Poland,_ okay?”

Her friend nodded and smiled tightly. “Fine. Have fun.”

“Don’t I always? You know what, don’t answer that.” And in a moment, she was wolf and the night was her realm.

* * *

 

The world had changed in just over three years.

For one, there was no HYDRA in sight. For what Jane could smell, the traces were well and gone from all the bases she could check.

 _What do you know, SSR and the Stupid Commandos have won_. The idea was laughable, but well, here it was. HYDRA defeated and a new era was dawning.

It felt surreal.

In a way, it kind of was.

Jane’s paws brought her straight to the Polish border, right two feet before.

Her eyes were not as good as her nostrils or her ears, and she couldn’t see above the horizon line for obvious reasons. There was nothing that looked even remotely suspicious.

For the next few days, she kept watch along the border, hopeful to catch something, anything that could tell her just how to proceed, even if only to have a legit reason to roam some more into enemy’s territory and wreak some havoc. Just a bit, not even that much.

But apart from talks about a wall in Berlin, no whispers of disappearances, strange happenings or simply uncommon happenings were to be found.

For the simple fact that she was bored, Jane took to walk the cities at night in her human form, listening to people’s chatter.

Once or twice, she thought she’d spotted something, a flash of recognition, anything, but turned out to be wrong in every occasion.

What a weird situation to be in. Like the calm before the storm. But she wasn’t going to let her guard down for a second.

HYDRA was defeated, yes, but her Mistress’s pet was no fool. Red Room was still active, and this time they knew it wasn’t the Howling Idiots after them.

* * *

 

Summers in Southern Germany were disgusting.

Not that Natalya felt the heat, but she didn’t like it. She didn’t like the stupid place, she didn’t like the stupid wind and most of all she didn’t like being pegged for a foreigner from moment one because their stupid accent and language used a completely different grammar system than normal German so she was forced to use her stupid French.

She liked so few things as it was.

Picking up after a handful of idiots because nobody was able to find five little girls after _years_ of a case getting cold was not one of them. Not at all.

The handlers should have let her loose years ago. She’d have caught them in five days. _They are probably dead,_ the ugliest part of her laughed maliciously, _they’re not you, they weren’t meant to survive in the first place_.

Her hands tightened on the wheel. Sometimes she wondered when she’d started thinking like that, but then she always remembered.

She let her eyes rove all over the street from the driver’s seat. How the hell was she even supposed to find them?

The woman suppressed the urge to hit something and went for her purse, maybe she had a cigarette or two left, this senseless wait was giving her a migraine.

In well over sixty years of work, Red Room had lost only four batches of experiments.

The biggest one had been Wolf-Spider, of course, but they had decided to let go of that project already before the experiment just destroyed the facility and ran for it. Natalya had orders to run in the opposite direction were she to ever encounter Wolf-Spider in her path.

There had also been two major breakouts of experimental patients, but those were absolutely unimportant to the bigger picture. Who cared if a man with three eyes or a woman who glowed escaped?

Then there were these girls, five Phase two young trainees who had managed to escape a malfunctioning facility God only knew how. These ones Natalya could actually do something about. She wouldn’t blame them too much for wanting to survive the fire, their programming, of course, would always make them go for it, but she loathed the amount of work she had to do simply to prove _they were dead._ Needless to say, they would have heard of mysterious accidents in the last three years had this not been the case.

There were no cigarettes left. Her hand discarded the empty packet with rage, only for it to crumble on the files they’d given her as means to find the lost sheep.

Natalya sighed, reaching for them.

She flipped them over aimlessly, all the faces of the thirty or so escapee flashing before her eyes. Why even give her the records of the other experiments, she didn’t know.

But it actually turned out to be a serendipitous coincidence, for in the streets, talking rapid German with the Baker’s daughter, was a former Phase One escapee, right where the agents had said the tracks ended, back then.

And this couldn’t _possibly_ be a coincidence.

* * *

 

“So I was thinking- Jane?”

Jane blinked sleepily from the couch. “What?”

“Oh, shit,” exclaimed Darcy, “sorry I woke you up, I’ll just-”

“No, ‘s cool,” yawned Jane. She was due to a good night’s sleep, those rounds were making her go stir crazy. “What were you thinking about?”

“...Don’t worry about it, we can talk about it tomorrow, you get some sleep.”

Yeah, sleep sounded wonderful right now.

She listened to the sounds of her people cleaning the dishes and quietly going to sleep as she slipped further into the softness of the couch. It was the best.

She dreamt of running, maybe, she couldn’t exactly focus, when a small clicking noise made her left ear twitch.

She groggily opened one eye, had she imagined it? It happened more often than not, what with four girls as silent as ghosts in the house and Darcy tiptoeing around everything like a scared bunny.

But in the dark, there it was again. All of sudden, her nostrils were invaded by a foreign smell, and it wasn’t a bunny.

 _Enemies! They want the pack!_ Her mind screeched. Still, she stood as still as a corpse, pretending to be asleep.

Sure enough, the enemy _(thief? murderer? rapist???_ ) approached her first, instead of going for the stairs. Had them dared to go for the stairs to get to her people, she would have _slaughtered them._

The intruder smelled female, but also not, it wasn’t a pleasant smell and she wasn’t going to dwell on it.

The moment the intruder moved, Jane _attacked_.

In one swift motion, Jane moved her leg up and kicked the woman into the stomach so hard she flew out of the glass door and with another movement she had dragged her to the courtyard, ready to eat her whole.

“LOCK THE HOUSE!” She screamed ferociously, her lips curling and her muscles tensing. “ _I wiLL dEstROY YOU, YOU STUPID WHORE!_ ”

She always tried not to transform around the house. For once, she’d make an exception. The car squeaked under the pressure of her too big body and crumbled against the house wall. Darcy was going to be so mad.

The woman, to her credit, hadn’t stopped trying to reach the house, while simultaneously trying to avoid her, who was now a very big threat. She had taken out her gun and was shooting her heart out.

It was just so funny.

‘Stop wasting my time, little creature,’ Jane growled, ‘I munched on bigger things than you’ll ever be.’

With one eye-smile, she had grabbed the thing in her mouth and was ready to swallow. Maybe she’ll digest this filth in twelve years or so.

“ _JANE, NOOOOOOOOOOO!_ ”

* * *

 

_“I didn’t munch on her that hard!”_

_“I had to give her stitches!”_

_“She’s the enemy!”_

_“Yes! But she’s also the only inside source we have right now!”_

Two things were painfully clear to Natalya.

One, she was not dead. _The woman who was not a woman and she had no idea this kind of creature existed and she was going to die-_ had miraculously spared her.

Two, she was bound to a bed and in a _lot_ of pain.

Also, two people were talking in her cell. Loudly. About information she couldn’t possibly be allowed to know, as the enemy. What kind of individual discussed how they were going to use her for information in front of the person they wanted to manipulate said information out of? These people were amateurs at best.

Her training had taught her that inexperienced people were unpredictable, but easier to swindle. And the second girl was bound to be the bleeding heart of the group, the good cop, so to speak. If the dangerous one could be kept distracted, she might actually make it.

She made a show of groaning, pretending to wake up.

“Oh, now you acknowledge us, murderer.” The tone of voice sent fear racing into her veins. She had to reevaluate the previous danger assessment.

Her eyes could finally focus in the dark and she could see who she was talking to.

There was a woman with curly hair and a gentle smile, and Natalya recognized her as the escaped experiment. The other woman, the one who’d become a giant ball of murder, was smaller with brownish hair. She wouldn’t have looked at her at all in the streets, but her eyes were filled with hatred and contempt. This woman had a very tiny fuse and Natalya had no intentions of blowing it.

“Ya ne-”

“Don’t play stupid,” the woman snarled, showing a very impressive amount of white teeth. “You speak English just fine.”

 _Very well_ , Natalya thought, _silence it is._

She wasn’t going to say a single word to them.

“How are you feeling?” The other one asked timidly and oh Natalya was right, this girl had a huge bleeding heart.

She glared at the woman, who had the decency to look sheepish.

“Please,” Danger scoffed. “She was a bit roughed up, nothing more. The Russians gave her the good stuff, she’ll be fine in an hour or so.”

“Jane!”

It took her a second to realize that Danger’s name was a banal ‘Jane’, but it had to be a trick. Jane Doe indeed. However, she wasn’t wrong. The serum was already fixing most of her damage already, and she could feel the stitches in her abdomen being redundant.

“Would you like something to eat?” No, she’d rather be released.

She kept stubbornly silent through all the questioning, Jane hovering over the kind woman’s shoulder in a very protective manner, until both of them finally left her alone.

Her hands immediately started to feel the bindings.

 _Red Room handcuffs_. Natalya frowned. Impossible. But it was both impossible and unlucky, because they didn’t exactly train you to escape the only way they had to control you. That would take some time to get out of.

Time she probably didn’t have considering Jane’s temper. _Well, you did attack first_ , her mind supplied, _you should have just gone for the other girl, she was probably right upstairs._

“Hi again.”

Her head snapped up. It was kind girl, who was more silent than she’d given her credit for.

“I’ve brought you something to eat, you must be hungry.”

She glared harder. Was this girl stupid?

“What’s your name?” The girl was unimpressed with her glare, which had cowed better and stronger men.

“And so I thought that maybe you’d enjoy something warm- And the tea-”

“Are you allowed to speak?” _What?_   “It’s cool if you’re not verbal, not many of us are here, so we started to learn sign language, too!”

To Natalya’s growing horror, her silence wasn’t a deterrent to the continuation of the one-sided conversation. She was going to be _talked_ to death.

“How am I _supposed to eat or sign if I’m bound to the bed_?” she hissed, just to _please_ make her _shut up_.

It worked. The woman blushed. “Oh. Right. Sorry.”

There it was. Her chance. Natalya widened her eyes. “Untie me, please, I’m just so hungry…”

To her surprise, her next victim’s mouth tightened. “When did you last eat?”

“...What?” Wasn’t she supposedly the nice one?

“Sorry, that was weird, right? Let me just…”

Instead of untying her, though, the woman just grabbed plate and fork and dutifully proceeded to get it closer to her mouth. Was she going to force her to eat?

“Do you think I’m stupid?” she asked her incredulously.

“What?” the woman startled. “Oh, it’s not poisoned, I promise.”

“...Right.”

“It’s not! I can eat some if you want? Not that it’d really make a difference if it was poisoned, because we’d both probably heal right up,-”

Natalya froze. “What?”

The woman sighed. “Throw me a bone there, girl. You’re not stupid, I’m not stupid, and you’re bound to the bed. There’s food in my plate and it could be in your stomach. We aren’t trying to kill you.”

“You want something from me.” She had heard them.

The woman nodded, she wasn’t even trying to hide it. “Indeed. Ideally, you’d tell us where to find the Red Room base of operation. Logically? You’re not going to give it to us. We’re not naive to think you will, but here’s to hoping. I can’t untie you, of course, but I can spoon feed you if you want me to.”

The spy laughed and spat in nice woman’s face. “You’re getting nothing from me. I’m not hungry.”

The woman left, looking disappointed.

* * *

 

They tried to bribe her with food for days on end.

She let them give her water, because she wasn’t an idiot, and never complained, but always refused the food.

Kind girl was more worried by the day, and Natalya felt a thrill of satisfaction every single time.

She didn’t see hide or hair of ‘Jane’.

She had never been more thankful for her superior genetics, glad that her serum was keeping her perfectly strong despite the hunger.

Her cell wasn’t a cell, it was more like a… bedroom of some sort. And it had windows. Huge windows she could stare out of. She never saw anything but the woods, but it was enough. She could run from this dratted place and get reinforcements.

A week in, however, her resolve started to falter.

Her jailor looked fit to be tied, her distress plain on her face.

“You have to eat something, anything, please!”

Natalya turned her head away and the girl made another wounded sound. That was her problem, she wasn’t going to indulge these two.

“How old are you?” Ah, they were back to questioning today. Still, the question was an easy one, and she could be a good liar when she wanted.

“Twenty-one,” she said, trying to convey as much pity as she could on her face.

The woman nodded. “Me too.” And yeah, Natalya had gathered she was barely a kid.

“Only, I’m actually sixty-three.” Natalya’s brain screeched to a halt and her face involuntarily turned to stare at the woman.

She was sitting at the foot of her bed, hugging her legs, her head easily within reach of the spy’s legs. She was smiling softly, uncaring that she was exactly in the perfect spot to be killed.

“Surprised?” she asked. “You think you’re the only one? Oh no. I was seven and my parents were in Russia for… you know? I don’t even remember. I remember them dying though, and me in their labs for ages. Have you met Dr Kudrin in person? Because I did, once, when they started cutting parts to see how fast I healed up.”

Why was this woman telling her this? Natalya frowned, she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear it. “I can’t prove they gave us the same soup, of course, maybe it’s weaker than mine, I doubt it could be any stronger, but your legs snapped into place pretty fast when I got you out of Jane’s mouth, so I’m pretty sure that you’d be safe from poisons. I know what my body can do, do you?”

It was a trap.

A clear, stupid trap and she wasn’t going to fall for it.

“Is a bite going to kill you?” sighed the woman, rhetorically. “One tiny bite?”

Natalya glared at her, glared with all the force she had and was only met with her unimpressed, pitying stare. The woman was offering her the spoonful of food again.

She took a bite and turned back just as fast to avoid watching the smug look she was sure the woman now sported.

She would never admit it, but it was delicious.

* * *

 

“Release me, you are all kidnappers.”

The woman snorted. “Are you going to kill us all when we do?”

“No.” Not until she had loads of backup, possibly even another Black Widow.

“Mh.” The woman nodded and proceeded to feed her another bite. She had stopped feeling humiliation over this ages ago.

“What are you going to do to me?”

“I don’t know,” was the usual answer. Of course, she didn’t know, she didn’t know anything.

“What are your master’s plans?” she asked again.

“Master?” the woman blinked. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but there is no master. No, don’t scoff, it’s true, there is no secret society bent to destroy you. _I’m_ the leader here.”

The spy gaped. This slip of a woman was _the boss_? Oh God, the head kidnapper had been in her room for weeks pretending to be her friend and she’d fallen for it and she was a terrible spy and the handlers were right and she wasn’t worth anything -

“DARCY!” A girl flung herself into the room.

Natalya’s jaw dropped.

The small frame, the light-blue eyes and the fair skin were unmistakable despite the picture she’d been given not being updated.

It was one of the girls! They’d been there all along! That’s what the woman meant when she said not many of them were verbal. This place was a refugee cove! She’d thought she was just cleaning up for Red Room by killing off a loose end… She truly was terrible.

Bile rose to her throat and she almost vomited all over her bed.

“Freddy’s gone blue in the face and we can’t get him to breathe again!”

The woman, ‘Darcy’, cursed loudly. She handed the plate of food to the girl and left the room so swiftly Natalya had whiplash.

She was left alone with another Black Widow trainee. Her eyes widened and she tried to remove her handcuffs. The skin bruised under the metal but she ignored it. She knew what they were trained to do when they found a captured ally, and what they were ordered to do to a weakened enemy. And there were no allies in the Red Room.

The girl just stood there, looking uncomfortably out of place as Natalya tried to detach her own arms to get away.

“...Should I step out of the room?” The girl asked, in English. “I see you’re… really uncomfortable with me.”

This shocked the spy into immobility.

Was… was one of the assets lucid? Like, actually verbal?

“Orders?” she demanded, frowning.

The girl shrugged helplessly. “Not free you from the handcuffs, do my homework and since I’m holding a tray probably to wait here?”

Natalya sucked in a breath. She wasn’t just lucid, she was… she wouldn’t dare say ‘normal’, but she didn’t know a word strong enough to describe it. This girl wasn’t an asset.

_“What have they done to you?”_

The girl frowned at her, suddenly insecure. “Did I do something wrong?”

“Of course not,” Natalya’s spine straightened. She knew that voice.

It was Jane. “You’re doing amazing sweetie, thanks for keeping this, you can go back to your classes now.” The girl nodded, relieved, and as soon as Jane pet her lightly on the head she left the tray on the desk and left, _waving at her_.

“What have you done to her?”

Jane’s eyebrow rose challengingly. "Oh? who’s we?”

Natalya seethed. “You know what I mean.”

“Sure do,” Jane shrugged. “But I don’t really care. I mean, they’re doing amazing right now. When we got them they were killing each other off like hungry chickens.”

“You have assets you don’t understand and you’re-”

“Stop right there, lady,” said Jane, “we know exactly what we have in our hands. Four little girls, scared out of their wits trying to be human again. And they’re doing well. And I’m not going to let you destroy it for them.”

The dangerous woman advanced into the room, and Natalya feared for her life.

“I’m all for killing you, but Darcy’s against it, for now.” Jane was scrutinizing her and the spy had the idea that she was found... lacking... somehow. “But you move against any of my people, and Darcy pleading or not, I will destroy you. Understood?”

The spy nodded slowly, her face a mask of rage.

“Now, Darcy’s going to be back soon, and I’m sorry I have to cut this short, but let’s just be clear here, once again. Darcy, the girls and the rest of the residents of this house are off limits for you. You and your Red Room. Let them come, I will chew on them as I’d love to chew on you. Nod if you understand.”

Natalya nodded again.

“Brilliant. I’m glad we had this conversation! Now I really must go, the girls are having their physics class and I’m the appointed teacher. Fare thee well, little spider.”

Natalya wanted to scream.

* * *

 

“Why are you keeping them?”

Darcy turned her way, “mh?”

“The girls,” Natalya elaborated. “Why are you keeping them?”

There had to be ulterior motives. Since her ‘amicable discussion’ with Jane, Natalya had tried to figure out what bound two different creatures this way. While Jane was an absolute sociopath, Darcy seemed… genuinely good. She worried and fussed and she was simply too nice a girl to be the actual leader of this… whatever this was.

Darcy smiled sadly. “Because they deserve it. They need stability, they need a new start. They deserve to be happy and as far as possible from the life others have chosen for them.”

The spy frowned. “Pretty words.”

Pretty words and good intentions didn’t change the world. “To shape a new world sacrifices must be made.”

Darcy cringed. “Is that what you think?”

Was this a trick question?

Her jailor shook her head. “I believe change shouldn’t come at expenses of innocent lives. I believe everybody deserves a choice. Because we matter. Because _you_ matter. And you deserve it.”

Natalya’s first reaction was to kill her. The second was to laugh. Instead she just blinked rapidly.

Pretty words. From a liar.

* * *

 

After almost three weeks of captivity, and it was just so humiliating to even think about it, Natalya had edged all of her bets and decided that if Jane wasn’t going to kill her, she was going to make a run for it.

So, with as much charm as she could muster, she asked Darcy for a bath.

The girl had apologized profusely about not offering one earlier, and, along with Jane, seemed to devise a ‘safety plan’ to allow her some privacy.

Perfect.

The next day, they shackled her to the bathtub and gave her the room.

Alone. In a room with a big window.

Darcy was guarding the door, but Natalya didn’t care about that. She had won.

Her right hand was free already, the ugly bruises healing before her eyes. She hissed in satisfaction.

“You doing okay in there?” Her kidnapper kept talking to politely check on her.

“Yes, perfect,” she said, clear enough over the sound of the water, her hands working as fast as possible on the handcuffs.

Darcy wasn’t even worried, the sweetheart. “So, uhm, unnamed girl who tried to kill us…” She started.

“...What?” Natalya asked. _Keep talking, keep her distracted._

“I… Well, I was thinking… You could stay with us, if you wanted?”

Time stopped. Stay? _With them?_

“I mean, we have space?” The woman was babbling behind the door.

The handcuffs finally clinked, defeated. Natalya hesitated.

* * *

 

_“Let her go, Jane.”_

_“WHAT?!”_

_“Let her go. She needs time. But we need to move right away, in case she chooses wrong.”_

_“Darcy, you can’t just trust tha-”_

_“I can. Now help me with the boxes, we need to blow the place sky high before nightfall.”_

* * *

 

Sweden was basically home.

 _Jane loved it_. It reminded her of the Good Old Times, when her Mistress was a God and everything was just perfect.

She wanted to roll in the snow for ever and ever.

Swedish was, however, another bag full of cats.

“I hate not being able to speak a single word,” complained Ethan, who despite all expectations had decided to stay with them. In the past few years they’d lived in France, Austria and in Sokovia, and now they’d moved to Sweden. Even Fred had left and now was working as a baker in Fleville.

Darcy was still an empty nester about it and poured all of her leftover love over the girls, who pretended not to bask in it. She had also taken to read the newspaper from front to back, taking away the weirdest clippings with no explanation. According to her ‘it helped her keep track of time’.

Jane could empathize.

“Well, you don’t need to speak to read about _that_ ,” exclaimed Anya, handing him the newspaper. “They’ve landed on the Moon, Ethan, _the Moon_!”

It was the talk of the town, all over the place. The man had landed on the Moon, and it was the Biggest Deal.

People had bought TVs with the sole goal to watch the momentous event. Jane couldn’t see the appeal, her people had been travelling all over the Nine Realms since the beginning of times, in fact _they_ had bound together the Nine Realms. Then again, her Mistress had been a force to be reckoned with.

The girls had been with them for almost twenty years, and yet didn’t look one day older. It made living in the same place for over four years very difficult, but Darcy insisted they live in the city now, to help them ‘integrate more’ and ‘expand their horizons’. With the evolution of technology, staying isolated wasn’t just feasible anymore.

She wasn’t sure she liked the idea of them leaving one day, and no she wasn’t becoming softer.

They were now entrusted with errands and Ol’ga had asked to further her education. As an added measure, Jane would join University too as a commuting student, just in case she needed to intervene.

She would never admit it, but she was kind of looking forward to her classes. Physics sounded fascinating on a more advanced level.

“Are you excited?” Darcy smiled over the newspaper, her new best friend. Jane should feel jealous, really. “Going to school, learning all the cool stuff?”

Jane snorted. “As if! I’m just being a handler here.”

Darcy giggled. “Of course, of course.”

* * *

 

It dawned on Jane Doe, wolf from Outer Space, that in the last seventy years or so she had more contact with humans than she had in the thousands of years of banishment she’d suffered through.

And that the humans should have been more fearful of her.

She knew, in the back of her head, that the first instinct of every human was to recoil slightly at the first sight of her, proof that preservation instincts were, in fact, not dead.

She was thus baffled when Alan Foster, student of physics, one day sat beside her in the big, almost empty lecture hall and simply… never went away.

It was almost cute, in a puppy kind of way. But Jane appreciated his company, and she couldn’t deny that the man was brilliant and his ideas on quantum physics were inspired.

“So, did you have the chance to read about Pym’s latest theories? That man is pure genius, I tell you!” He was also overly enthusiastic about his passions.

“No, no I haven’t,” Jane smiled, “but I’m all ears, do tell.”

Darcy couldn’t understand physics the way she did, not really, and it was just so refreshing to be able to talk about it with _someone_.

Jane Doe and Alan Foster graduated the University of Stockholm in 1975 and soon after became researchers for the Physics department. Much to Foster’s dismay though, Jane had opted to become a simple assistant and leave the spotlight to him.

It was a very risky move, especially since Darcy and the girls had to move frequently and this gave them a rather small area to move around, but the family supported her choices and never once complained.

Dr Foster was a good sport about her colleague’s frequent uprooting and moving, but she could see he did wonder why their ‘father’ Ethan kept switching job and town like they were out of fashion.

A couple of years later, Hank Pym’s name disappeared from the important names, and Dr Foster had become one of the most prominent quantum physicists in the whole world.

So much so that when he announced that, along with his colleague, he was switching over to astrophysics, many important names had the courage to complain.

“Why astrophysics? Wasn’t quantum physics your true love, Alan?” Jane had wondered too about the sudden change of heart.

“You’re probably going to think I’m an idiot,” he edged. Jane scoffed, he was already an idiot, talking to a giant wolf, even if he didn’t know that. “Well, I’m your coworker, I think I deserve some kind of explanation.”

Alan scratched his head, “you’re right, of course. I just- I had a thought last week. What if our studies, we used for something bigger? Like, have you ever thought that maybe we’re not alone in the universe?”

“...You mean aliens?” Well, if he put it like that.

“Yes! Exactly!” he was excited at the prospect of the little green men. “And what if we could reach them?”

Jane’s eyes widened. “What are you talking about?”

“I am talking about an Einstein-Rosen bridge! A real, proper, _wormhole!_ ”

* * *

 

“A wormhole.”

“Uh-uh.”

“A real ‘enter here end up there’ kind of hole thing.”

“Yep.”

“...Wow.”

Jane smiled excitedly at Darcy’s impressed face. ‘Wow’ was exactly the reaction she’d expected from her friend. They were sitting in the living room in front of the fireplace, while everybody else had already retired for the night. They rarely had time during the day, what with Jane’s job and all.

“That’s going to be groundbreaking in our field. Alan says that-”

“Alan says, huh?” giggled Darcy.

Jane shuddered. “Oh, hush you, I didn't mean it like that! Alan’s like a brother to me, don’t read too much into it. Eww. Odin spare me.”

Darcy chuckled. “Don’t worry, I’m just pulling your tail. I’m happy you’re happy.”

Jane smiled. “Thank you. But think, Darcy! Think of all the things you could see, if we make it! It would be just like the Bifrost we have at home! I could take you to Vanheim, or Alfheim, see the elves-”

“Or Asgard.”

“YES! Home-” Jane frowned. She hadn’t really thought about Asgard. Or her banishment. “...Maybe not. But you know what I mean!” She refused to have the Allfather rain on her parade, today. “Just you wait, Darcy. It’s going to be great!”

“I can’t wait.” Her friend smiled and Jane was touched.

Darcy didn’t understand physics, and not because she couldn’t understand it if she wanted, but once again her friend believed in Jane one hundred percent. Jane said she’d make a jet and fly to the moon? Darcy would make her scarves because the Moon was going to be cold. This kind of infallible trust humbled her every single time.

Thunder rolled above them and Jane instinctively shuddered.

“Weather’s been crazy, lately,” complained Darcy, tightening her shawls.

It was true, in the last few months there had been a slew of anomalies. In Italy there had been snow in late June and various thunderstorms and out of season typhoons had plagued France, Germany and Denmark. They were lucky Sweden had been relatively untouched, apart from the sudden gusts of cold and snow episodes.

“Don’t I know it,” whined Jane. “My fur will never recover.”

Darcy snorted.

Just then, a heavy knock was heard.

They both frowned, looking at each other. It was almost three am, who in the blazes of Hel could it be?

* * *

 

They were in bed.

They had to be absolutely in bed and she was in a mess at 3am in the night.

It was pouring down and she was soaked to the bone, she had left everything in the car and that same car she had left in a dark alleyway three streets over didn’t even lock properly, what the hell had she been thinking.

_“Don’t open the door, they’ll go away!”_

Her eyes widened. They were awake. She’d _made it_!

The lights in the room turned up and the door opened.

Her eyes tried to adjust to the sudden light, and that turned out to be a mistake.

“YOU!” A hand grabbed her roughly. Jane the Danger had the same exact killer look in her eyes, the one that made her insides twist in all the wrong ways. The look of somebody who didn’t exactly care why you stepped on their path but wouldn’t let you do it twice.

“Wait wait wait-” she pleaded. “Please wait, five minutes. Please!”

The tiny woman snarled. “Your five minutes expired over twelve years ago.”

“I know! I know, oh, I know!” It didn’t escape Natalya’s notice that she was still under the rain and that Jane had no intention of letting her in. “But I need your help, please.”

“Help?” Darcy’s head poked from behind the door she’d been standing behind the entire time.

“Yes! Yes, please, help!” She frantically nodded. The woman looked at her in the eye, then nodded.

“Jane…?”

Jane groaned, displeased, but let her go. Darcy smiled. “Hi, Mystery murdery woman.”

Natalya massaged her shoulder. “Natasha is fine.”

Darcy’s smile widened. “Did you want to come in?”

That sounded heavenly, and at the same time, it was very much a threat. “Ye- No. Wait. I need to get something from my car.”

They both frowned. “Your car.” Jane deadpanned.

Natasha just nodded. “Yes. It’s… close. You can come with, if you want.”

“...I’ll wait here. On the door.”

That was fine with her. She raised her hands non-threateningly and slowly made her way down the little steps of the house and then dashed to the car.

The streetlight right across wasn’t working properly, she could barely see the house from where she was.

As she made her steps back to the house, under the pouring rain, she could see their baffled faces changing from suspicion to shock and then horror.

“These are Vera and Diana,” she started, her arms on each of the terrified kids’ shoulders. “They are fresh from the Bol’shoi and they’re the last survivors of the Moscow cell. I know where the Red Room Headquarters are, and I need your help.”

* * *

 

It was almost four in the morning, and they were drinking _tea._

Natasha’s hands shook around the cup, her whole body was on a seventy-two hours non-stop activity and she was bone tired. If it weren’t from the serum she would probably be dead right now.

“Don’t break the cup, please,” sniffed Jane, “Darcy will be upset.”

Natasha ignored her, taking one large sip challengingly. Her host raised an eyebrow.

The door creaked slightly and Darcy reappeared in her field of vision, along with a brightly coloured shawl. “Here, take it. The girls are asleep and I left Ol’ga with them, they’ll be okay.”

“So,” Jane didn’t even let her take the shawl, “tell us about this problem, or why we’d listen to you at all.”

And so Natasha started her ugly tale, from the moment she realized that there was no Supreme Good of the nation, that she wasn’t just killing ‘bad people’ (she hadn’t truly believed it, but she had liked the lie), that her handlers would never stop and that Dr Kudrin didn’t think of anybody’s safety. Of how she’d started hating them for it, and how she’d tried to bring them down from the inside and how _she was so close._

A hand gently touched her shoulder and Natasha startled. When had Darcy gotten this close?

The woman retreated as if burned, muttering apologies.

“I still don’t see why you need my help, frankly,” said Jane bluntly. She had gotten closer as well, but seemed more engrossed into the tale than interested in the spy’s emotional well being.

Natasha took a deep breath. “I can bring them down and I can do it on my own.” Her eyes flitted to where Darcy had come from. “But the last time only two girls lived, and in the main cell there’s bound to be more. I-”

“You don’t want to pull innocents into that,” Darcy concluded for her.

She nodded, but wouldn’t say it out loud. Her eyes stayed on Jane.

The woman was frowning, her lips tight. “So my job would be-”

Natasha’s eyes immediately flew to Darcy and Jane snorted, “oh no, it’s me alone or nothing, pretty girl. Darcy’s not going anywhere close to her captors. Besides, I’m more than capable of ending you, in case you are really trying to pull my tail.”

She rose from the armchair and stretched. “Get some sleep and rest, little spider. We leave tomorrow evening, just you and me.” Her smile was so ferocious and eager, Natasha shuddered.

* * *

 

They left as soon as the sun went down, Darcy packing a flurry of items because the house wasn’t safe enough for new guests. Jane felt almost guilty at leaving her to pack on her own, but Darcy wasn’t complaining and having two little kids was giving her empty nest syndrome another outlet, thank Odin for small mercies.

“We can take the car, it’s not really fast but we should be there in around 2 days.”

Jane laughed. “Two days? Oh no, no way. We’re ending this now.”

Natasha raised her eyebrows. “And how do you think of doing that? I ran over the speed limit at all times and didn’t stop for a minute and yet it almost took me 28 hours straight.”

“Start the car,” said Jane brusquely. “We’ll leave it in the woods as soon as we’re out of town.”

The little fiend scoffed but didn’t complain.

Of course, the difficult part was then convincing said little fiend to actually climb on her.

Darcy wasn’t half this difficult when they were in the field.

* * *

 

Up until the moment Jane and Natasha got to what the spy had told her was the Headquarters of Red Room, Jane wasn’t entirely sure she could trust the human.

It was a triviality, of course, especially since she was so far from her family and Darcy and the girls were already gone into the night, but she felt entitled to some kind of paranoia.

When it was clear that they had been waiting for them, her mind was made.

It took her one look at Natasha’s horrorstuck face, her tears at the small bodies on the ground and the vindictive smile of the agents and she _knew_.

They were all going to suffer.

“If you can’t do it, I will,” she said, her face twisting.

Natasha didn’t seem all that focused on the objective right now, her eyes never leaving the small corpses.

“No.” The spy’s hand went to her gun holster. She was apparently made of tougher stuff. “I’ll do it.”

That night, screams of pain and agony covered the entire sky.

* * *

 

They had made their way back covered in blood, tired to the bone (she couldn’t say with Jane, Natasha didn’t actually think she tired at all) and all around exhausted, when Jane’s head had swivelled into a completely different direction and her paws stopped running. ‘They’ve found a safe house, they’re not in town anymore.’

Natasha blinked from the back of the Giant Wolf. “How can you tell?”

‘I don’t smell them anymore. The smells are old.’

Natasha gaped. The wolf could smell somebody for kilometers?! That was a mind bogglingly strong sense to have. There would be nowhere to hide from such a power. “You can _smell_ them.”

‘Mh,’ the wolf nodded and her entire body shook. ‘In my wolf form there’s not much I _can’t_ smell. Unless they fly. Besides, I’ve been with them for years, I could smell them on the other side of the planet, I’m so attuned to them.’

Natasha nodded. That made slightly more sense, if only slightly.

‘You have a pretty distinctive smell, too. Full of crap.’

“ _What?_ ”

Jane laughed. ‘Not in a bad way, mind. It’s just… weird. As if you’d bathed in bleach and mild anaesthetic. It’s the most peculiar smell I’ve ever, well, smelled. No offense.’

“Right. No offense. Sure. Where do we go now?”

‘We follow my nose, of course.’

* * *

 

She was given a room at the corner of the house, as per her request.

She didn’t think they’d offer her hospitality again. The little girls, yes, of course, in the three weeks she’d known Darcy she had formed an accurate portrayal of the woman, she was certain the kids would be happy and overfed in no time, smothered in the affectionate aura Darcy seemed to naturally ooze.

Her? No. She’d thought they’d kick her out and that would have been just that.

She wouldn’t even have fought it, she didn’t deserve any kindness.

But Darcy had just shepherded her to her designated room and Jane hadn’t complained at all.

The only man in the house had frowned and Natasha was vaguely reminded of the young man he had been when she’d first ‘visited’, but with no visible opposition she had become an official member of the weirdest family in Sweden.

If she had actually tried to go out of her room and socialize, that was.

“Natasha, are you in there?” Darcy’s voice and polite knocking almost made Natasha roll her eyes. Where else would she be?

“Come in.”

A tray was lain in her line of sight, Darcy smiling encouraging behind it. “You haven’t come down to dinner, or lunch, or breakfast, so I thought you’d be hungry?”

“I’m not hungry, Darcy.” In fact, she hadn’t felt a twinge of anything that wasn’t guilt or self deprecation since the adrenaline surge had abated and she’d realized just what had happened, all those dead girls.

“Of course you aren’t,” nodded her… host? “But you might be.”

Natasha shrugged, she wasn’t going to argue with Darcy over food.

Darcy’s mouth became a thin line, and her face became contemplative. “Do you, mh, do you want to talk about it, Nat?”

She’d rather eat bullets. “-Not really.”

Darcy nodded. “I get it.” A pause. “You know it wasn’t your fault, right?”

“Yes, it was.” The words were out of her mouth in a second.

“No, it’s not!” A hand was on her shoulder and Darcy sat beside her on the bed. Despite Natasha being crouched on the bed, her knees to her head, the girl was still smaller by almost two inches. “It’s not, Natasha, believe me! We’ve all been there here, I assure you.”

Natasha shook her head forcefully.

“Natasha- Nat …? Isn’t it time to let go of this, it’s not your fault! Oh, oh are you crying? Oh-”

She hadn’t tried the food, had she? Because her throat felt tight and she couldn’t really see straight. Oh God, she was crying.

“...Are you going to kill me if I hug you?”

This startled a wet laugh out of her. What kind of weird question was that? But Darcy just shrugged, “I mean, you wouldn’t be the first to go for my neck instead of a hug, so…”

Natasha sniffed, “I don’t think I’ll kill you if you hug me.”

“Okay, good.”

The hug was awkward, unwelcome and most of all Natasha could barely stand it.

“Natasha? I can’t breathe if you don’t let go a bit…”

Okay, she was lying.

* * *

 

Jane had been the big strong Alpha for many years, going through hoops to keep the needed stability for four brainwashed prisoners of war, who had admittedly gotten so much better they barely needed her. They had kept their routine as much as possible, with daily exercises and the hours spent to speak different languages in the house, however, Jane was pleased to note that Natasha’s presence had lifted a big weight from her shoulders.

As seamlessly as she expected from her, the superspy had started training with them in most of the time, and that meant that a lot of the time Jane spent keeping an eye of them was now, well… free.

Interestingly enough, Darcy had started participating more, probably because of the new kids, whose training had just barely started and looked like awkward ducklings.

Still, it was nice to delegate some of her job and be able to participate more in hers and Foster’s project, which admittedly wasn’t going _that_ well.

“I don’t understand where we’re going wrong!” complained Foster one day, throwing the last of their wrong calculations into the trash.

Jane sighed. “We must have missed something.”

“But what? What isn’t working? It should!”

They had been hitting walls recently, a lot of walls.

Foster and his assistant Doe were still the biggest name in the astrophysics department, for now, but people had grown more and more sceptical. They hadn’t told they were looking for aliens, of course, but the lack of important results had been throwing a wrench in their path and a spot on their reputation.

Unfortunately for them, the more time it passed the more it seemed they were eons too early for interstellar travel, and Human technology simply hadn’t… caught up.

Not that Jane could actually _tell him_.

* * *

 

Years passed and with them Vera and Diana grew up like the sprouts they were.

Darcy had told her they had around six to eight more years before they moved out, or started to take _vacations_ , as they were getting restless already.

It was so strange to have functional kids around, after so much time. Ethan, who watched Jane’s struggles with adolescents in a non-post-war scenario, found it hilarious.

“Come on, Maam,” he snorted over the newspaper, “at least these ones won’t teleport out of the house at curfew!”

That was true. Odin knew Margie had done that all the time, a lifetime ago.

Natasha just looked at them oddly. “Teleportation?”

“We’ve had our series of odd ducks,” dismissed Ethan. “People saved from Hydra and all that. Most of them had trouble with the new powers at the beginning.”

“Oh, yeah!” Darcy teased. “Or that time you burned down half the shrubbery in the house, when was that again?”

Everyone laughed as Ethan’s ears burned bright red.

Natasha blinked rapidly a couple of times, and then just huffed. “Of course. Of course you weren’t happy just messing with the Russians, you also had superpowered kids all over your house.”

Darcy winced and Jane sniggered. “Actually, Russia wasn’t even factored into our plan. We just wanted to bust every experiment from Hydra’s grasp. The girls just sort of happened.”

The wide eyed look they got was worth it. So worth it.

“You brought down an entire organizat-”

“Technically,” Darcy scoffed, “that was all you. We just wanted the children. Besides, it’s not like they didn’t have it coming.”

Natasha gaped.

Jane threw her head back and laughed.

* * *

 

“This isn’t going to work.”

Jane turned her head from the fancy machine she was trying to build (it was still a work in progress, but it was going to work). “What?”

“This!” Alan gestured to his latest prototype, which was looking sadder than the previous one.

Jane smiled encouragingly. “We just need more time, we’ll get there.”

“Yeah, you will. I sure as hell won’t.”

Jane startled. “What?”

He sent her a pitying look, and for a second a flash of jealousy crossed his face. “Jane, how long have we known each other?”

Time was never important to her, so she hardly kept count of the finer details. Her eyes widened when she got what he was hinting at. With a jolt, she stared back at him. His look said everything. He had noticed. “Almost twenty years, Jane. And you haven’t gotten older by a day. You’re still the same. Everyone around you gets older and you don’t even notice. And at first I didn’t care, okay? Because maybe I had it wrong and heck, you’re entitled to your secrets, but yeah, I can’t deny anymore that you are simply not aging. _At all_.”

Jane sighed. She had expected this, sooner or later.

She had discussed it with Darcy, and later with Natasha and the girls, about just how much her colleague should and should not know. Telling him about the girls was out of question, it wasn’t fair to them and Jane would take their secrets to Hel with her. Forever.

But Darcy had tittered and hemmed and hawed, clearly uncomfortable with the idea of her lying to her long-term partner to protect her, but also not enthused with the idea of him knowing.

Natasha had offered nonchalantly to take care of the problem for them, and despite Darcy being horrified at the idea, Jane had the impression that she’d missed something between those two.

But while they had agreed that their life should be protected, Jane was of course free to do as she wished with her own secret.

And she really, really liked her friend Alan.

“...Your theories,” she said finally, drawing his attention again.

“What about my theories?” he asked, confused.

Jane cleared her throat. “They’re real.”

His eyes widened comically. “You mean-”

“...Hi, I’m Fenris, I go by the name Jane, and I’m a Giant Wolf from Outer Space.”

* * *

 

Energized by the prospect that yes, aliens were real and yes, they had Bifrost technology, Alan Foster now came to work with a spring in his step every day.

Jane smiled every time he waved at her in the morning, like his views of the world hadn’t shifted and everything hadn’t gotten an entirely different meaning.

“You know, I had never considered the possibility of going home before you talked me into it.”

Alan blinked. “Seriously?”

Jane shrugged. “Well yeah, the Allfather’s words seemed pretty absolute back then.”

“Huh. I still can’t believe Norse Gods are real.”

“You’re taking it quite well, actually,” Jane snorted.

“Am I? I wouldn’t know. How many of you are there?” His eyes widened. “Your sister…?”

Jane’s smile vanished. “No.”

“Wha- But I’ve seen her, she doesn’t-”

“Don’t go there, Alan,” she warned. “Leave the family out. I’m serious.”

The growled threat he got shut him up for a second. It dawned on him, for the first time in years, just how much of the danger his preservation instincts had denied.

“Okay, no touching the family, got it.” He nodded, as if nothing had happened. As he was wont to do whenever a topic didn’t interest him anymore, he switched topic.

“So, I was thinking of getting help for the next University session? I have five candidates, and they all look very promising.”

Jane sighed, thrown by the non sequitur but relieved enough not to show it. Darcy was a master manipulator and compared to her, Alan Foster was peanuts.

“Sure, show me.”

Of five candidates, Doctor Erik Selvig started working under Alan Foster during the coldest winter Sweden had to date since 1934.

* * *

 

The girls were hiding something from her.

Natasha wasn’t entirely sure what, but she caught them giggling and plotting behind her back more than once. When she found exactly what it was, and she would find out, she always did, she was going to… Well, she wasn’t still sure about that point, she had no idea of what they were hiding, after all.

“Could you show us that pose again?”

They had been at it for almost one hour. Natasha had taken upon herself to keep the girls’ reflexes sharp and to help them hone techniques a wolf from outer space couldn’t exactly teach them, being her fighting style more suited with somebody with a lot of brute strength. Not that juiced girls weren’t strong, they just weren’t that strong. Natasha knew it first hand, despite having the best serum out of everyone in the house, she still had lost to Jane in about three moves.

Still, the girls today were purposefully messing up, and it was unacceptable.

Natasha pursed her lips, but complied once more. She bent her body forward and moved her left arm gracefully in front of her.

Somebody gasped behind her and the girls giggled.

The temptation to just straighten and check was great, but the girls were only waiting for that, so Natasha narrowed her eyes and finished the movement in a swift motion.

This time, the person behind her, whose identity the spy had finally put together, dropped something to the ground.

The girls giggled harder, one of them laughing out loud. “Are you okay, Mom?”

Darcy squeaked.

Natasha wanted to die.

She contented herself with glaring at the monsters, that seriously they were almost 40 years old it was time they stopped being chil- She could actually liken them more to nosy spinsters, right now. Their smug face said it all, truly.

“I think we’re done for now,” she said sweetly, rejoicing in their suddenly wary eyes, “And I’m sure we could all do with a long, long run.”

“What?!” they cried, “it’s raining!!”

“Exactly.”

The punishment did not, unfortunately, deter any of the girls.

If anything, such accidents multiplied tenfold, much to Natasha’s chagrin.

While she had never fallen into that ‘please show us again’ trap again, accidents seemed to happen all the time she and Darcy were in the same room.

If they had been any subtler they would have shouted it from the rooftops.

At least Darcy was having fun with that. “Oh, come on, they’re cute!”

“They are not,” grumbled Natasha, glaring at Darcy’s laughing face.

Darcy laughed harder. “They so are. Look at them, trying to play matchmaker. They’ve grown so much.”

“We should just tell them and be done with it,” she huffed, not liking the mirthful grin on her girlfriend’s face.

“We could…” Darcy edged closer, “but then again, we can only tell them _once_.”

* * *

 

Erik Selvig was a very promising scientist, with a good head on his shoulders and the fierce belief that Foster’s ideas were... eccentric, to say the least, but was still determined to help and to be a good colleague no matter the cost.

Jane liked him immediately.

He was wrong, she couldn’t tell him just how wrong but he was, and yet he insisted on coming to work every day, despite the job being so far from what he’d wanted when he’d applied.

He’d come in at around ten, say hello, complain about the weather that was getting warmer and warmer and then go to his table and start crunching numbers.

That day, however, when Jane got there, he was already on his papers, fully concentrated. He had a mug of coffee beside him and was whispering nonsensically.

“Hello, Erik,” she said, her nose instinctively twitching, trying to find what was different that day.

Erik made no sign of acknowledging her and kept working on a… geographical map?

Puzzled, she turned to Alan. “What’s wrong with him? And why is he looking at maps? And are those archeology textbooks?”

Then, she noticed Foster was much in the same state, his clothes the same as yesterday. “Wait, what’s wrong with you, too. Did you go home last night?”

Alan started, the mug spilling coffee on some of his papers. He cursed. “Jane… hiiii!”

Jane’s frown deepened. “What’s going on here?”

“Nothing.”

“That was quick, Alan. Absolutely subtle,” Jane deadpanned.

He sighed. From his table, Erik shot her an ‘absolutely done with this bullshit why am I even doing this’ look.

“Fine. I wanted to surprise you with this, but come look.” He eagerly shuffled some papers and took out a black and white set of pictures. “We’re still fishing for some more details, Erik’s got it, but _look_!”

It was squiggles. A whole lot of squiggles in the snow, and the picture was grainy.

But Jane’s breath caught in her throat.

“Is that…?”

Foster nodded enthusiastically, “it’s just as you described it, right? A real Bifrost site!”

“A REAL WHAT SITE?!”

They both froze.

Erik was staring at them, coffee all over the floor, slack jawed.

Oh, Darcy was going to kill them.

* * *

 

“We have a problem.”

Natasha could do subtle when she wanted, she was _a spy._

Today, Jane huffed, wasn’t one of those occasions.

They had been sitting at the dinner table, the whole family minus a couple people, Erik and Alan included, when Natasha had stormed into the room, Anya hot on her heels.

“We have guests,” Darcy sighed, turning from a conversation she’d been having with Selvig about meatballs, but they all knew it was a lost battle already.

Alan had raised his eyebrows, but was already back to his meal. It was hardly the first time something like that happened in their house.

Erik was openly staring. Jane could understand, the spy was beautiful by human standards. She didn’t completely understand Darcy’s sudden dark look, though.

Natasha had the face she made when she wasn’t going to just drop it and send everybody in a tizzy.

“What’s the problem?” Jane said, wiping her mouth with her napkin. There was no way she was going back to eating, she was almost certain.

“There’s been another one.”

Yes, she wasn’t going back to her dinner. Neither was anybody else, for that matter.

The girls sprung from the table as if burned and Ethan looked stricken.

Darcy was white as a sheet.

Erik was the picture of puzzlement. “What’s another one?”

“Nothing that concerns you,” Natasha snapped.

Jane cleared her throat and Natasha blew from her nose. “I’m sorry, but who is he anyway?”

Erik scrambled to his feet, extending his hand. “Erik Selvig, I’m Doctor Foster’s new assistant.”

Jane was waiting for the moment Natasha’s brain caught up, for the charming smile she always wore with strangers to show up, along with that polite and overly sweet tone of hers. However, her eyes went fleetingly to Erik’s smiling face and to Darcy, who had been sitting right beside him the whole evening. She smiled politely, and for a second Jane relaxed.

Rookie mistake.

“I’m Natasha, Darcy’s girlfriend.”

At least two people spat out their drinks, a spoon dropped and somebody gasped.

“Oh, my God,” Darcy flushed and hid her face.

It was as if the dark cloud hanging over them had been momentarily lifted.

Natasha’s smile could have been smug, but Jane was focused on Darcy, whose face now resembled a tomato. She was making noises of despair under her breath, while the girls giggled mirthfully.

Selvig, however, showed a commendable amount of nonchalance. “Nice to meet you. What’s another one?”

Jane’s eyes went to Natasha’s, then Darcy’s, and she exhaled, slowly. “You see, Erik, Natasha isn’t from here, she’s actually-”

“From the SSSR,” Diana supplied unhelpfully. Anya snorted.

“...Thank you, Diana. As I was saying, she still had friends back home. They are, however-”

“Dropping like flies.”

“Okay, stop it.”

Jane looked straight into Erik’s eyes. “The official version is that they had ‘accidents’, and that’s what’s happening, okay?”

He nodded slowly. “Why are your friends having accidents?”

Natasha sat gingerly at the table with them. “Let’s just say I wasn’t friends with the Government, shall we?”

He huffed in comprehension. “Ah, political dissident, I see.”

Natasha’s smile was brittle. “Right. This time, however, I must go and investigate it.”

“You’re leaving?!” Darcy’s eyes were wide and her face had now lost all blood again. “You’re going back to Russia?!”

Natasha nodded. “I must. Something is wrong and my friends are paying for it. Besides, it’s not like they can actually hurt me.”

Apparently Erik was no longer an issue and they were spilling secrets left and right, great. They’d chewed her out for revealing hers barely a month ago, the hypocrites. She tuned out the conversation, where the girls chimed in with suggestions and Darcy shot them all down with extreme prejudice, determined to keep them all safe and as far away from Russia as possible. Thankfully, Natasha seemed to agree with her girlfriend _(when did that happen, anyway?_ ).

She caught Alan and Erik’s eyes and surreptitiously mimed her lips shut. They both nodded understandingly. She solemnly nodded back.

* * *

 

Natasha left the next morning with an unnamed associate of hers, a burly man that could probably snap a man in two.

For the first few weeks, they all pretended everything was fine, especially Darcy.

Natasha would check in regularly with them with unimportant updates, and sometimes they would get regular ones.

And then she missed her first check in.

And the second.

The third and the fourth followed suit.

The forced state of calm and relaxation her friend had forced herself into crumbled right before Jane’s eyes.

She watched as Darcy slept less and less. Then the nightmares came back.

The girls’ mood worsened as well, with the eldest ones itching to leave and go looking for her.

“We’re trained for this!” complained Ol’ga and Anya, furious, to Jane. “We can do it.”

But Jane wasn’t going to let them. Their training was incomparable to what Natasha was able to do, and they’d been almost idle for over forty years. “No.”

“But she’s one of us,” they said harshly, careful not to be overheard by Darcy. “What about Mom?”

Jane sighed. “Girls, no. We will wait. Natasha will come back.” The girls looked mutinous, but didn’t ask again.

It was, unsurprisingly, the Wolf from Outer Space that snapped first. That same night.

“Okay, this can’t go on.”

Darcy started, surprised. “What?”

“We’re going looking for her,” Jane said. “Pack lightly, we’re leaving. Now. _You hear that, minions_?” she howled up the stairs. “We’ll be home in a couple of days. Warn Alan for me.”

She didn’t wait for an answer, didn’t wait for Darcy to pack, she just grabbed her friend and started towards the car.

The pains she went to for her people.

* * *

 

They followed her nose for hours with no results, when Jane finally smelled something that resembled a trail.

Unfortunately for them, it ended right before a hangar.

There were no signs of struggle, but the smell was days old.

Natasha was gone.

* * *

 

It had to be a fucking mistake.

Natasha swore again when another disgusting rat slithered on her foot, ready to climb her leg.

“Don’t shoot the rat, Natasha,” admonished Clint, waist deep in Sokovian sludge.

“The rat will live, Clint.” To prove a point, she grabbed the beast and launched it into the air. It squealed, landed in the sludge and ran hastily away.

“Monster,” he grumbled.

“Shut up. How far are we?”

Clint Barton, codename Hawkeye gave her the stink eye, but took out his digital map. “Three hundred metres west of the crash site.” He nodded. “We should be straight under the Novi Grad Town Hall.” “Can we exit from there?”

“Doubtful,” he scratched his head with his hand, then realized with a grimace it was as filthy as his body. “The bombs made a lot of damage, and according to the files a lot of the buildings and condos in the area collapsed on themselves. There’s also the risk of finding unexploded crap in here.”

They both flinched. Clint had lost his hearing to a bomb, Natasha knew, and she herself wasn’t too fond of being exploded in a hundred pieces. There was only one person she knew could recover from that, and even that was a lottery draw.

“Why have we been sent on an aid and recovery mission, again?”

Clint shrugged. “Shortage of minions? I agree it’s not really what we do, but at least it’s an easy one? No undercover job, no shooting people in the head.”

“Unless we’re exploded.”

“...Point.”

They trudged through the sewers of the damaged city without talking, looking for a way to properly exit the underground.

“Why through the sewers, anyway?”

Clint checked the plans again, “apparently there’s something to retrieve in here… wait. There was nothing about a retrieval op in the debriefing, right?”

Natasha shook her head. “Nothing.”

“...That’s weird. Let’s get to the surface and check with Coulson.”

* * *

 

“What do you mean they gave us the wrong mission?”

Had Natasha been any less trained, she’d have dropped her jaw. Instead, she and Clint exchanged an incredulous look at Coulson’s words at the phone.

“Agent Marks has been adequately punished for this mistake, Barton. I believe Sitwell was in charge of this whole Sokovia operation. You don’t have the clearance to retrieve the sensitive items.”

“What the fuck does that mean, Phil? I’m level 6, and Natasha’s a level 5. What’s so above out pay grade?”

“This mission, Agent Barton. And it’s an order.”

Clint scoffed. “What are we supposed to do here, then? Vacation?”

There was silence on the other end of the line, followed by the clicky sound of a pen, which was usually the sound Coulson made whenever he was so done with them.

“The situation is delicate, right now. Sokovia’s government has fallen and- We’ll see to send you an extraction team, and it’s probably going to take us… a week? Probably more. You’ll have to leave Novi Grad for us to reach you.”

“...How?!” he howled, Natasha privately agreeing. They had spent two days in the sewers because they’d been dropped out of town, she wasn’t going to do it backwards and the town was locked from the inside.

Another long silence. “Stay put, you two. I’ll get Sitwell to fix this mess.”

Clint slammed the phone shut, something he’d never have done if Coulson had still been on the line.

“Well, there goes me being home for the kid to be born, I guess?”

Natasha chuckled. “Don’t be dramatic, Clint, Laura’s not _that_ far into pregnancy. She’s barely into the second trimester.”

“But it was supposed to be my last quick mission before paternity leave,” he whined. “And now we’re waiting for ‘next month fix Sitwell’. I mean, I like the guy, he’ll go far in the Agency, but maaan. We’ll be lucky if they manage to _open the town gates_ in a week, let alone extract us. And we’re in _fucking 2004_. It sounds like we’re sieging a medieval castle.”

Natasha made a noise of understanding, smiling a bit. She could sympathize with Clint, she knew what it was like, being far from family. Not that anybody in SHIELD knew about that, of course.

“Come on, let’s find someplace to stay.”

He eyed her suspiciously. “Where? It was supposed to be an in-and-out op, we don’t have a lot of money nor any kind of cover.”

She rolled her eyes and gestured towards the rubble the nearest building had left. “I meant something less… conspicuous, if you catch my drift.”

“Ah,” he nodded in understanding, “squatting. Sure, we were due some good old dust bed. What about the unexploded stuff?”

She grimaced. “If we die, you can haunt me in Hell.”

That got a laugh out of him. “Deal.”

* * *

 

Novi Grad did not, in fact, get any better in the next two days.

In fact, after the All Clear was given and the authorities left the wreckage scene, leaving only a smattering of search dogs for what they assumed were all corpses, everything got somehow worse.

Strike Team Delta lurked around the streets, trying not to be noticed while they waited for Coulson to give them some sort of signal.

It was a sorry sight.

First came the distraught families, and then the friends and relatives, and Natasha was sure she would keep the sound of their cries in her heart.

Later that day, though, came the wolves.

They tore apart the rubble and scavenged anything of value, stopping short of looting the corpses. They came as an angry mob, marching towards the Town Hall and demanding action, not caring about the people and the still intact buildings that were in its wake, cursing Stark and the US.

“Why are they cursing Stark?”

Clint looked as nonplussed as she was. “Who cares? I mean, not that I’m worried or anything, but the angry mob will notice us if we don’t crawl back into the hole we came from.”

They silently made their way into another rotten, devastated building, this one a little better for wear than the one they’d slept in. In fact, the right side of the wall was still pretty much intact.

“We’ll just hide in here until they’re gone.” They nodded to each other. There was no way they were confronting an angry mob if they could avoid it.

They waited, in silence, with only the sound of their breaths, for the situation to settle.

Then, they heard it.

A whimpering sound coming from the floor above them, and a soft scuttling of _something_.

“Oh, great,” Natasha groaned, “another filthy rat.”

Clint snickered, and the sound abruptly stopped.

They eyed each other with satisfaction, at least this one rat wasn’t coming towards them, hopefully cowed into disappearing.

The sounds started again, though, much to their disappointment.

 _‘Mama.’_ It said.

Natasha’s eyes widened. “Did you hear that?”

Her partner nodded. Together, they hauled themselves up, and went looking for the staircase, or anything they could climb on.

* * *

 

It was kids.

Adorable, little kids no older than 10.

Natasha would have melted right there, weren’t for the dead parents and the huge, very unexploded ‘STARK’ bomb in the room with them.

“Tell me I’m not seeing this, Nat,” said Clint, his voice wavering at the sight of a very US government issue missile in a Sokovian civilian flat.

Natasha froze for a second but quickly recovered.

“Now’s not the time to think about it, Clint. We need to get them out of here.” It was almost a blessing that she’d seen this happening a lot during her time with Red Room. Being told you weren’t the good guys and seeing proof of it the first time mustn’t be nice when you’re in front of explosives.

The children recoiled, the little boy trying to hug the little girl so hard he was probably squeezing the life out of her. They had to be twins.

“...Agreed.” Clint squatted to their height and scooted a bit closer. “Hi, I’m Clint, who are you?”

The children’s eyes were wide open, the girl’s, though, were glassy and unresponsive.

“They probably don’t speak English, Clint.” Natasha warned.

“Do you know Sokovian?”

“Not a lick,” she shook her head. “Ty govorish’ po-russki?”

Both Clint and the child answered, “da,” and then the archer had the decency to blush.

“Poidi,” she tried to coax them with her hands, “Poidite, dorogoi.”

It didn’t have the desired effect.

One moment they were standing next to the kids, the next the girl’s eyes glowed a faint purple, and she had no idea how, but her back collided painfully with the wall, knocking the breath out of her. The kids were gone.

“Aw, shit,” Clint groaned. He massaged his back. “Great, just great. Mutants. That’s going to be a mess.”

Natasha’s head cocked to her side. “What about them?”

Clint pinned her with a look. “You didn’t read the new Mutant regulations, right? The new big UN announcements lately?”

She shook her head. “I try not to concern myself with idiots, remember?”

“Right, right. Well, anyway, we need to get them. We’ll report them to Coulson. He’ll fix this.”

Natasha’s blood froze in her veins. “What?”

“Natasha, don’t misunderstand, but right now SHIELD is their best bet.”

The spy scoffed. “No, it isn’t, we just need to get them out of here and drop them to an Orphanage, or somewhere where their relatives will find them.”

“And then what? What happens when they use their powers? They’ll be reported. And _then_ , what?”

Natasha shuddered. “We’re not taking them to SHIELD, Clint. They’re kids.”

“Well, I’m not saying we’re getting them mission ready! Fuck it, Natasha, I like it even less than you do, I started my gig at 15!” _“_

 _I was ten!_ ” she bit out and his mouth clicked shut. “And it’s not a pissing contest, Barton. I’m not taking children to a spy facility who would just love fresh meat, no matter the good intentions.”

He sighed. “Sorry, you’re right. I’m just- Look. Phil saved me from a tight spot and, shit, he’s as good as they get, okay? So, unless you have a better solution, when we find these kids-”

“I do.”

Clint blinked. “Sorry, what?”

“I have a better solution.”

* * *

 

Natasha’s solution had involved… a lot more work than Clint would have ever liked.

Once they’d caught the kids, who were much faster than Clint would have given them credit for, Natasha had sat them down and talked to them until they decided what to do.

She’d reasoned with them and asked and prodded until the kids decided they were willing to leave.

“What would have you done had they said no?” Clint had asked.

Natasha had shrugged, “I would have made some calls and probably sold my soul.”

And that had been that.

They had scavenged what could be salvaged out of the kids’ house, then had gone back to the sewers, _and then Natasha had taken his cell phone away and proceeded to con herself and them into at least five different cars_ and he still didn’t know how they had reached the Danish border. He had so many questions, he was going to grill her as soon as there weren’t kids around.

Only the fact that the kids had latched on her instead of him was restraining him, but now they were in a small Danish town and Natasha was asking directions and it was the middle of the night.

What the hell were they doing here?

“Natasha-”

“Later, Clint.”

They had this conversation every hour or so, and he still hadn’t managed to fully form a sentence.

The woman led them to a small cluster of houses outside the town, more similar to a suburb than Clint liked.

The more they advanced, though, the more he noticed her paling. Her face was very white, she worried her lip and his eyes probably deceived him, but he could swear she was sweating.

“Everything alright?”

“Yes,” she replied shortly. Then sighed. “Sorry, it’s just- Nothing, forget it. Okay, we’re here.”

‘Here’ was a house at the very edge of the road, almost hidden by the big fence and the trees coasting it.

By then, Clint had enough. “Okay, it’s three in the morning, and I followed you from Sokovia to _fucking Denmark_ and now a house. You’re pale, scared as fuck and we’re all tired. Is this your grand plan?”

Natasha glared at him so harshly he recoiled. She took a deep breath to calm down and relaxed her muscles. “These are my friends. Or, at least, were. I hope they still are. They’ll keep the kids safe. They’ll let you go afterwards. They’ll probably not kill me.”

Clint blinked, “that wasn’t the answer I was looking for.” He had only a vague idea of what kind of friends an International Assassin would keep, and it wasn’t the place to raise kids in.

“It’s the only one I’m giving you until we’re inside.” Then she snorted. “Three am, of course it was going to be three am.”

She placed a hand on both kids, put them in front of her as if to shield herself, and knocked at the door.

Nothing happened for two, long minutes.

“They’re probably asleep,” he hedged.

“They’re not,” she breathed, but she didn’t sound convinced. “They _never_ sleep.”

“What do you mean? Of course they-”

The door opened and light poured in front of his eyes.

“NATASHA?!”

It was a woman. A young woman in her twenties or so, with sleek blonde hair tied in a knot and pretty doe eyes.

She looked completely different from Natasha, and yet Clint had no doubt they were related.

With a sinking feeling, he realized Natasha had taken them to a Red Room operative.

For a second, Clint Barton wondered if he’d just walked into the wolf’s den.

* * *

 

The smell alerted her first.

It was like bleach and novocaine and something else.

She knew that smell. She was attuned to it, she’d looked for its owner for so long.

“Are you okay, Jane?” Erik looked up dubiously from his papers.

“Yes,” she frowned. “Where’s Darcy?” Erik shrugged, “probably where I left her, upstairs knitting. She’s doing that sweater thing we’re not supposed to call obscenity.”

“Right,” she nodded. “You might want to get her.”

It was her colleague and long time friend’s time to frown. “Why?”

“ _NATASHA?!”_

His eyes widened comically and his mouth dropped open. Jane just sighed, took a deep breath, and hauled herself downstairs.

She swiftly removed Diana from the door, and screamed.

“YOUUUU!”

It took her about three seconds to register that one, she still had her scary flare.

Two, Natasha and her friend had recoiled so bad her friend had crouched.

Three, there were children.

The prodigal child in front of her raised her hands up, and then lowered them in front of the kids. “I come in peace!” She exclaimed immediately.

Jane puffed up, threateningly, and waited until the spy started to sweat before deflating, “of course you’d bring gifts. Come on in.”

The face she made was comical. Oh, Jane would treasure it for eternity.

“You’re not… mad?”

“A bit,” Jane admitted. “But then again, I’m just waiting for her to tell me to chew you, literally.”

She sniggered when Natasha shuddered lightly.

The man was confused, though. “Did I miss something, here, Natasha?”

The spy shook her head helplessly. “No.”

Jane opened the door a bit wider. “Come in,” she eyed the little kids, they looked just so tired and hungry. “Come in,” she said again, kindly.

“They don’t understand you.”

Jane’s eyes went back to Natasha in a flash. “Don’t tell me.”

“...Sorry?”

“Of course they’d speak Russian. Like you’d do anything halfway.” She wanted to scream.

Natasha had by then regained some of her colour. “You still don’t speak it.”

“No.”

They stared at each other uncomfortably, when the small boy coughed.

“You’re right, kid,” Jane sniffed. “I can always eat her later. Come in.”

* * *

 

They were all condensed into a living room that was big enough for twenty, but in this moment barely fit five. And there were about thirteen of them.

The girls were all pressed against the wall, looking worriedly at the scene. Erik wanted to be anywhere but there, so did the man Natasha had brought in. The children were nonplussed.

Jane wanted popcorn.

It was like watching two beasts enter unfamiliar territory, she mused. But she wasn’t going to miss this for the world.

Natasha stood stock still right between the doorstep, and Darcy on the opposite side of the room.

 _Any moment now_ , Jane almost sniggered, _sparks were going to fly at any moment._

But they didn’t move, only stared at each other. Well, Darcy was also crying, which was putting a damper on the whole showdown.

“Are… are we waiting for something?” And there it came, the friend of Natasha was now going to be called ‘idiot’ forever, because the moment he opened his mouth the spell broke, and instead of an epic showdown they would all need brain bleach for this.

Darcy just, _flew_ into Natasha’s arms. Not even one word and they were _kissing_. In her living room. _Right in front of the children_.

It wasn’t wild animals anymore, it was like watching eels. Or snakes.

“Thank you for that,” she groaned. “I was expecting more than wet kisses out of a ten years separation.”

This shocked Vera into giggling. “Did you want a fight?” she whispered.

“Well, no,” Jane blinked. In the corner, she saw the idiot stare at her confusedly. “But you can’t honestly tell me you didn’t want at least a slap. Just one.”

The girls rolled their eyes at her and she huffed. Erik just shrugged at her helplessly.

“They’re not really listening in, are they?” he said dubiously.

“Hardly,” said Jane. “If they’re half aware we’re still here I’ll eat vegetables for a week.”

“WHAT IS GOING ON HERE!”

Jane almost jumped. Almost.

Everybody frowned at the man, happy couple notwithstanding. Even the little kids were surprised at his outburst.

“That was rude,” reproached Jane. “After we let you into our house, first you interrupt the greatest reunion and then shout into my ears. Rude.”

“I was raised into a circus,” he sarcastically bit out. “I’m still waiting on an explanation.”

“Sucks to be you,” shrugged Jane. She owed the human nothing. “I have cookies if you want.”

The man just glared at her with a mixture of rage and horrified incredulity, as if he couldn’t believe he’d been offered food. She could be polite, if she wanted. “I can have Erik eat them before you, if you’d rather?”

He frowned then, his eyes rapidly flitting to the embarrassed Selvig, who nodded and made to actually get the food.

After a while, though, when the kissing had made way to the sweet nothings they could actually hear and the level of giggling started to get on her nerves, Jane decided enough was enough.

She smiled at the kids, gently pried them out of the corner they’d been herded into by their muscly retainer and just, “DARCY, LOOK! CHILDREN!”

Maybe it was a tad exaggerated, and the girls had totally laughed at the awkward attempt, but it got the desired effect.

Her friend’s head swivelled to the side, her mouth opening into a surprised ‘o’ when she saw the tiny, hungry urchins.

Her eyes went back to Natasha, who had the decency to look sheepish. “I didn’t know where else to take them…”

There was a weird cough from the man, something that alarmingly resembled ‘SHIELD’, which made _Jane’s_ eyes widen.

“You considered _SHIELD_?”

Natasha started violently.

“Hey, lady,” the man frowned again. “We are the good guys.”

There was a sharp intake of breath and then a very tense silence filled the room.

“How about-” Darcy coughed politely when nobody turned to her. “How about me and the girls go make another room, eh?”

She tentatively smiled and got closer to the kids. “Hi! Who are you?”

“They don’t speak English,” Jane said.

Darcy nodded. “Where did you get them?”

Jane didn’t miss how pointedly she wasn’t addressing the man at all. Smart woman. Had Jane known he was SHIELD she wouldn’t have given him half a name.

“They’re from Sokovia, I don’t know if you-”

“We saw,” said Jane, “great job, US.”

“How can you possibly know about that?!”

Okay, now Jane wasn’t sure anymore if the man was fun or plain annoying. “We know stuff. Don’t pout at us, are you denying it was US tech, dear?” she bit out threateningly.

“Okay, okay, slow down,” Natasha had always been smarter than Jane sometimes gave her credit for. “The children are the priority now, if you can take them in.”

“Of course we can take them,” said Darcy. “They speak Sokovian, I assume?”

“I used Russian,” admitted Natasha. “Neither Clint or I were good enough at their language to attempt.”

Jane’s ears twitched. This was finally good news, Sokovian she could speak.

“Okay,” Darcy continued. “Now, we’re all going to leave and let you talk, yeah? I’ll join you as soon as the kids are set.”

Jane nodded, so did Natasha. The girls were leaving the room as calmly as they could, when ‘Clint’ spoke again. “All leaving?”

He seemed pretty cross at the idea of not having them under his eyes. Smart, but then again, beggars couldn’t be choosers. Not in her house, anyway.

“The girls leave, right, Natasha?” she smiled. She wasn’t exposing them to SHIELD any longer.

“Of course,” Natasha nodded. “Clint, it’s okay. They’re friends.”

Clint wasn’t happy, but apparently his bond with Natasha was strong enough, for he nodded and finally, finally sat on the couch. Jane was tired of being the only one sprawled on her armchair.

She followed the girls’ and Darcy’s steps upstairs, and heard Erik’s confused mutterings about nonexistent cookies.

“So, Clint,” her smile widened and Clint shuddered. “I don’t know why we should, but let’s. Let’s talk. Like adults.”

* * *

 

Where the hell had Natasha taken him?

There were at least six operatives from Red Room, looking at the girls alone. The one with the long hair who was eating Natasha’s face he couldn’t categorize as well as he liked, but the others, oh the others were dangerous.

A little more on the ‘deer in the headlights’ side than he’d expected, but still very dangerous.

In fact, until the moment ‘Jane’ had smiled at him, he’d just thought her shouts were all bluster and posturing and he’d seriously miscalculated.

This one was the most dangerous of the lot.

“So,” Natasha started, “Jane, this is Clint Barton. Clint, this is Jane-”

“Foster,” she smiled again, and Clint didn’t think teeth could be this scary. It was the same feeling he got whenever he got too close to Sasha the tiger, back when he was a kid.

“Foster,” finished Natasha. “Alan…?”

Dangerous Foster’s face darkened. “Measles, four years ago. Dad and Ethan got it bad, nothing the meds could do.”

Natasha winced. So did Clint, involuntarily. “I’m sorry. Darcy-”

“Was a wreck,” Jane cut her off. “But it’s been four years. We’ll play catch up another time.”

“Yes, of course.”

By now, Clint’s patience was done. Dead and buried. “Natasha, _please_.”

A beat. “Clint, meet my family.”

”...What?”

“It’s a long story,” she helplessly said. Foster was sniggering quietly.

“We have time,” he said. Nobody knew they were there, in fucking Denmark, they had all the time. He still didn’t know how they’d tell Coulson _that._

Natasha shrugged and gave him that unreadable look of hers. “About fifty years ago, Red Room lost a base to unforeseen circumstances. Within the base, there were girls that were… like me, for lack of a better term. Unfortunately for them, the track they’d followed up to Germany became cold very soon, and the girls were left for dead after a couple of weeks.” She took a deep breath. “Red Room sent me to recover proof of the bodies, or find some kind of track. I managed to find the tracks again, but-”

“Long story short, I almost ate her.” Jane interrupted again, loudly. She seemed supremely satisfied about the odd choice of words.

“Riiiight,” he nodded.

“Are we telling him the whole story?”

Clint’s body tensed. He hadn’t noticed the brunette coming back.

“The kids?” Jane asked.

“Asleep. Cute as a button, those two. A bit scared, but they’ll fit right in.” This one was decidedly friendlier than Jane. “Did you have to travel the whole way without rest? They’re dead on their feet, poor darlings.”

As much as Clint wanted to point out that they were just as tired but it was Natasha’s fault, the woman’s gaze held no real reproach, so he just shrugged.

“I trust Clint,” Natasha said, _and oh sure, now she trusted him, not before leading him to a Red Room cell_.

The woman nodded and so did Jane.

“So, uhm-”

“Clint.”

“Clint,” the woman smiled. “Do try to keep an open mind, because this story starts with wolves.”

* * *

 

Could you actually get away with threatening US spies? Jane was about to find out.

“You won’t tell anybody,” she snarled again. Whenever Clint Barton brought up his friend Coulson, actually.

“Coulson is not anybody,” he repeated.

“I don’t care,” she snapped. “You’re not putting my family at risk, or I will _eat you_.“

His eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Wouldn’t I?” she shot back. She would. For Darcy and her pack, she so would.

She wasn’t budging, and he knew this.

Darcy and Natasha had left to hash some other details Jane didn’t really care about, they spoke like Mutant kids were going to be any different from the enhanced they’d had over the war. Nah. If they’d done it with Ethan, who was flammable twenty times out of ten and Margie who fucking teleported? Pietro and Wanda would be no different.

Hopefully, Darcy was warning her about the hidden Nazi SHIELD kept in their ranks, too.

This left her with Clint, and she was ready to do her _job_ in case he so much twitched in her direction.

“Look, be reasonable. I trust Phil, he’s good, SHIELD are the good guys here.”

Jane snorted. “Your precious SHIELD has been cooperating with Nazis for a long time, or so Darcy’s sources tell us. You’re not the good guys.”

Barton drew himself up like he’d been zapped. “How dare you. We took the Nazi down for a reason. The world’s greater good has always been in our heart and motivations.”

It wasn’t hard to see how much this kid actually believed in what he said. It was almost sad. “Then explain the US bombs.”

He flinched. “That doesn’t mean anything. It must be a mistake. SHIELD sent us there to help.”

“Did they?” If that were true she’d eat her recent research papers.

“Yes!” He said.

“That’s great,” she smiled, unconvinced. “Let’s say you’re the good guys, then. What is going to happen to Pietro and Wanda the moment you report them to your friend?”

“I get it, Foster.” How cute, he was trying to reason with her. “But, again, be the adult here. You’ve got to give me something. Coulson will notice we’re not there in three days, he’s going to ask questions.”

Jane sighed deeply. Her hands twitched slightly and she stretched to stop them from tingling.

“Barton, I’ve been doing this for… a long, long time. I’ve saved dozens of children, I’ve destroyed so many Hydra bases I can barely count them, Darcy has records though so you can probably ask her but I digress. The kids are safe, here. They’ll be happy. My family has been safe for decades. We know how to hide and we’ll keep them with us for as long as they’ll stay. Natasha gave them their best chance, I promise you.” She looked straight into his eyes. “Don’t sell this family out, Clint Barton. Trust us.”

His steely eyes met her and after a while, he nodded. “Okay, fine. Just… fine.” He sighed and she almost laughed at him to his face. “What are we telling Coulson, though? He’s going to notice we missed extraction.”

Jane smiled ferociously. “But you’re not going to miss checkpoint, Barton. Three days in Sokovia, was it?”

* * *

 

“I’m surprised you’re not complaining more, Barton.”

Agent Coulson had been waiting for them before they had even touched the tarmac, his sunglasses shining over the sunset lights.

They’d barely landed, and already he was shepherding them to medical, just in case.

Clint groaned and massaged his tailbone. “I’m not crazy, Phil. Medical will do me some good.”

Coulson blinked evenly. “That’s a first. And sensible.”

Natasha snorted. “He wasn’t two days ago. Decided to jump from about sixty feet in the air.”

“Nat!” Clint howled, betrayed. From behind him, a harried looking nurse just rolled her eyes.

Coulson just nodded, gesturing to the medics to come closer and just get it over with. “Sounds like Barton. Jumped off what, exactly?”

Clint stared at him, then glanced briefly at her. “The town walls.”

“The Town walls.” Phil repeated slowly. At Clint’s embarrassed look, he groaned. “What are we going to do with you?”

“For now,” said Doctor Farley, a wizened no-nonsense guy with a thick German accent. “A shot will do. For the pox, you see.”

“Wait, wha- What do you mean the pox-OW!”

* * *

 

_“Oh, absolutely, we’re alright, Nat. Don’t worry, everything is alright!”_

Everything was not alright. In fact, nothing was alright.

Jane had believed it when she’d said that two kids with powers weren’t going to be a challenge compared to the girls, but while it was true that their situation wasn’t even half as bad, the twins were a whole different problem she had not foreseen.

Hans had been as fast as Pietro, an absolute speedster (and Jane had relished in telling Barton that she was even faster, oh she had), but while Hans had always taken Darcy’s orders to heart, Pietro just… didn’t care. There was rage in his eyes, some sort of pure hatred a nine years old child shouldn’t have and it was just so… jarring to see it on his tiny, young face. It disappeared as quickly as it came on his face, and most of the times he was an adorable kid.

And Wanda.

 _Odin, don’t let her start on the girl_. It wasn’t the catatonic silence, they had plenty of that and it would hardly be a problem. It was… the rest.

Wanda’s powers knew absolutely no bounds and boundaries. It wasn’t her fault. Much like Pietro, their control over them was pretty much zilch. According to the boy, they’d barely started manifesting before the bombings, and with theirs, many children had also shown special powers. Jane wondered if this was the real motive behind the attack, but it was a theory she was unwilling to say out loud.

Unfortunately for them, Wanda’s powers were of the invasive sort.

Telekinesis she could deal, teleport, no problem. Telepathy was another beast entirely.

She didn’t care if Wanda entered her mind all the time, she had nothing to hide and the idea that a wolf cared about propriety, modesty or whatever was hilarious. Her pack, _however,_ was not so enthused with these effects. In fact, apart from Vera and Diana, who had never been mind controlled in their life, the other four girls were terrified of the little child. Darcy reasoned that with more control things would just smooth over, but for now contacts within the recovered prisoners of war and the girl who could enter minds and put any thought at their forefront was explicitly forbidden.

They were cordial to the twins in the common rooms, but were never left alone with them.

The girls never said it out loud, but Jane could see their shoulders relax as soon as the order was given. They’d been admirable, and had never ever created any serious problem, but Darcy and Jane both agreed it was best not to push it. Pietro didn’t seem to notice anything amiss, but Jane didn’t kid herself. Wanda probably knew.

They had no idea how to help her. It had been weeks, and by now they should have made some kind of headway. _Any_ kind.

Instead, nothing.

Meanwhile, Pietro was taking to English like a duck to water, which was a relief, especially for Erik, who had just barely gotten the hang of Danish.

“They are so smart,” he said one day to a distressed Darcy. “The girl will come ‘round, like the others did, don’t worry. But for now, look.”

Erik had taken to teaching them maths, he was a born teacher, and while Wanda wasn’t overly responsive, Pietro could coax her into just doing stuff. Like Maths, apparently. “Their work is above peers their age, Darcy. Much above.”

Jane appreciated Erik’s efforts, and so did Darcy, but her friend worried.

* * *

 

After almost two months, however, Darcy decided that if Wanda wasn’t coming around, maybe going to the source would give them some headway.

They asked Pietro.

The child had stumbled upon his words multiple times trying to explain, going as far as muttering ‘Wanda afraid’ in puzzlement. It wasn’t much, but they reasoned it was just as much as a child could understand.

“I just wonder of what,” muttered Ol’ga under her breath. She wasn’t excited about Wanda’s powers, but the little girl had grown on everyone in the house, with her big eyes and puffy cheeks.

“Duchovi,” shrugged Pietro.

Everybody froze.

Jane blinked slowly. She had no idea Pietro’s hearing was that good.

Darcy, however, didn’t care about _that_. She lowered herself until she was making direct eye contact with the suddenly sheepish boy. “Duchovi, Pietro? Ghosts?”

Pietro blushed.

“Hey, duchovi is a cool word! And don’t worry,” Darcy smiled. “It’s okay, you can tell us.” Conspiratorially, she repeated the sentence in Sokovian.

Pietro got closer to her ear and put his tiny hands around it, just in case they were eavesdropping.

 _“Duchovi govoryat Wandy_ ” he whispered.

“I see,” said Darcy. “And what do they tell her?”

Pietro just shrugged. “Lots.”

Ol’ga, Anya and Jane looked at each other in confusion over Darcy’s shoulder. They weren’t supposed to hear, though, so didn’t comment on it.

Jane opened her mouth, ready to interrupt, when Darcy just nodded again and thanked him. The boy, happy to be able to help, went back to his homework, leaving them in the corridor.

Anya frowned. “Lots of ghosts, or lots of stuff?”

* * *

 

Could Wanda see ghosts?

Also, were ghosts a thing? Was this real or was this mess only imagined?

Jane had no answers.

“Physics is so much easier, Darcy,” she complained, sitting on the carpet, her back to the coffee table, so that the fireplace could warm her back properly.

“Children are hard,” agreed her friend.

“...Do you think she sees ghosts?”

Outside, the wind blew and hissed against the glass windows, making the topic sound almost ominous.

Darcy sighed and frowned. “I don’t know. It’s possible… I mean, we haven’t found a limit to Wanda’s powers _yet,_ who knows what she can really do? But then again, she’s a _child_. It would be so much easier if she could-”

“Talk, yeah,” finished Jane. Talking would be nice. Or being able to explain what she was experiencing at all. They had seen her talk to Pietro with her mind (or Pietro made up extremely interesting monologues), but so far she hadn’t tried once with them.

“But whatever it is, it’s scaring her something fierce, poor girl.”

“Indeed.” She blew through her nose huffily and stretched, her arms almost knocking over the cups on the coffee table. “How do I kill something already dead?”

Darcy smiled sadly. “We can’t kill something like that, until she tells us what’s wrong. Also, not everything is about killing people.”

“It worked very well so far,” Jane pouted. Darcy, the kids, the girls, Natasha, the other girls… It was a pattern she could easily recognize. Of course, the real demons appeared much, much later, but at least she was doing _something_.

“That it did.”

* * *

 

Jane Foster had given up in trying to fit into Academia after the first few years, no matter that until Alan had worked with Quantum physics they had been _the_ name right after Pym. But for Alan’s sake and, in part, to stick it up to the humans that had dared call him a quack, Jane Foster, daughter of the late Dr Foster, was determined to prove his theory and invent interstellar travel. She was going to do it, and then stick it to both the Humans and the Allfather… maybe.

“No letter for you, Jane,” sighed Erik, his employment letter unopened on the kitchen table.

“Who cares?” shrugged the wolf. She wasn’t a great teacher to begin with, and nobody deserved an inch of Alan’s knowledge until her job was done.

Erik didn’t comment on that. Jane was always so surprised he was sticking with them, he could have any place he wanted as the ‘sane’ helper of Dr Foster.

It wasn’t that they really needed the money, mind. They had plenty of that to live comfortably, but it was true that their studies could only be properly funded with grants. Or with a lot more money. They had calculated that not even a Nobel could be enough to get enough substance for their research. It kind of hurt. Alan’s dream might need to wait a little while longer.

“They asked me again from Culver,” Erik awkwardly said, shuffling from foot to foot. Prior to Natasha barging in and messing up their lives again, Jane and Erik had been preparing to move across the pond with their merry band of girls. Culver had offered them both a place, research funds and even living accommodations, but with two impressionable and to some degree traumatized children, moving was no longer in sight for the time being.

This, though, meant that she was going to be persona non grata on Denmark’s Academia’s shoulders a little while longer.

Jane nodded. “We’ll move as soon as the twins are okay.”

He nodded back.

Hopefully, Wanda would come to them soon enough and some sort of healing process could begin. She was hardly as compromised as Eva or Ol’ga had been.

“Oh, Erik, welcome back!” Darcy smiled, shaking snow off her coat, the wooden logs for the fire firmly in her arms. “You got the mail?”

“Yeah,” he waved them in the air, “most of them are bills though.” The temptation to just bite the bills and conveniently forget about them was always strong.

“Figures.” snorted Darcy. “The kids did alright?”

“Kids?” Erik blinked, perplexed.

Darcy blinked back, confused. “Yeah? Pietro and Wanda? They were with you, right?”

“The kids weren’t with me!” he said immediately.

Chills started to run along Jane’s spine. What was that about? The kids never went anywhere, they’d never even tried to open the door on their own!

“Well, I’ve fed the fireplace upstairs and they weren’t there, so I just assumed you-”

“When was the last time you saw them, Darcy?” Jane interrupted her mind had started working in circles, going back to who she’d seen cross the kitchen to get to the living room, the only door unlocked to the outside, and coming up empty.

“Two hours ago? Maybe less, Diana and I have been to get some more firewood and we checked before going out, _and they were in their room_!”

“Guys…” Erik paled, “Wanda can _kind of_ teleport, right?”

_Well, fuck._

* * *

 

Her paws skidded on the white snow, almost sending her butt into a tailspin.

Just her luck. Not only she was a giant spot of black into a sea of white, visible to anyone who dared to look outside in the storm, but she had also started using cutesy politically correct names such as ‘butt’ in her _thoughts_. Disgusting.

Her snout twitched again. ‘They can’t be far,’ she muttered. ‘At least they didn’t zap straight to Sokovia.’

It was just about the only good news she was getting. The kids had just run away in a panic. Had they really gotten to Sokovia, it would have been much harder to track them down in the snowstorm.

Instead, they were just ‘gallivanting’ in the woods.

She doggedly followed the trail through the snow covered trees and shrubbery, following her nose and her ears where her eyes couldn’t be trusted. The icy coating her fur had gotten was never going to come out, she was quite sure.

Her feet hit another covered hole in the ground and she skidded again, eating a mouthful of iced tree branches.

‘They’re going to freeze to death,’ she snarled, spitting madly. ‘But if they live, I’ll kill them myself.’

The scent led her to a cave, and then to another small forest before stopping straight in front of a decaying abandoned house. Jane almost snorted.

The twins in the small house in the middle the woods and the Big Black Wolf. How fitting. She was going to eat them after this.

Of course, now that she’d found them she was in another pickle altogether.

Changing back to human was a supremely bad idea, one because she wasn’t as snow proof as she’d like without fur (not that it could actually kill her, but she would rather avoid feeling the chill at all), two because she was extremely naked under all the fur and hadn’t really bothered with carrying her clothes. She could probably magick some, but why bother.

However, her form was much too big for any fine movement, such as knocking a door or even _entering the building at all_.

But the kids were inside, they were probably cold, and the storm wasn’t going to stop any time soon.

‘Pietro, Wanda, are you inside?’ she shouted, and then her ears lowered. What was she thinking, asking them to poke their heads outside? What a horrible plan. ‘Don’t come out, stay inside, I’m coming in.’

“ARGH!”

But it was too late. A window opened by a tiny fraction, and Pietro’s blue face poked outside.

His eyes widened and his face paled even more than it was, his lips blue.

“Wanda! VOLK!” he screamed and ran back inside. Shit.

That was not part of the plan. Definitely not part of the plan. If the kids ran now, they were dead.

‘Okay, supremely bad idea it is,’ Jane sighed, and transformed.

Her feet curled immediately on contact with the snow and she shivered. “Great, just great,” she huffed.

She opened the door, which cracked under her maybe too forceful movement, and stepped inside.

She didn’t know who was more shocked, them or her. They were gaping like fishes, but their teeth were chattering away and the purplish red magic coming off Wanda in waves was hardly sufficient to warm them up. She immediately went to them, but they retreated.

“You gave us quite the scare, kids.” She said, then, trying to find anything to use to cover herself or them, both if possible. Her eyes finally set onto a filthy used piece of cloth that would hardly do, but was the only thing she had.

“Jane?” Pietro blinked. “W-w-where wolf?”

Jane sighed. They should have probably broken it to them a bit earlier, or more gently than she was going to. “I’m the wolf, kid.”

Pietro gasped, and curiously so did Wanda.

“Fuck it-” They gasped more and Jane had the decency to blush. “Don’t tell Darcy that, she’ll get mad at me and make me sleep outside and _it’s cold_.” She didn’t know if the kids were giggling or they were just that frozen their teeth were moving on their own, but she wasn’t going to risk it. “We have to warm you up or you’ll be in a whole load of trouble, kids.” If they survived. And didn’t lose toes.

But there wasn’t much to save any precious heat, and if she transformed again her size would definitely destroy the last remains of the shelter they’d found.

“Come here,” she groaned. “We need to warm your little toes before they fall off. Let me tell you a story. It’s about wolves.”

* * *

 

They huddled around the fabric piece, Jane’s mind working a mile a minute to find a way out of this situation while the kids were focused on the wonderful tale of Hela and Asgard and the magic weirdo that was Darcy Lewis.

She couldn’t transport them in the snow, and they couldn’t stay here.

“Wolf scary.”

She started and lowered her gaze. She hadn’t imagined it, right? “What?”

“The wolf, the wolf is scary.” Wanda was talking.

 _Wanda was fucking talking_. They were in the middle of nowhere with no witnesses but the frostbite and the certainty that these kids were going to die and Wanda had suddenly decided to speak. _In English._

Jane wasn’t about to jinx it. “Indeed, Wanda,” she said, as if it didn’t matter. “I am the scariest thing you’ll ever meet.”

“I see the wolf in your head,” she whispered, terrified.

Jane squeezed her a bit more and looked at both of them. “I would never hurt you, you know that, right?”

Wanda didn’t answer for a while, and then nodded. Satisfied with the answer, Pietro nodded too.

“I don’t know what scared you into running away, but we love you and none of us could ever hurt you. Ever. We love you.”

“I see ghosts. In the girls.”

Jane tensed. Ah. That’s what it was. “Oh, honey,” she whispered. “That’s just who we are. But hear me on this one, we ghosts are pretty scary, yeah, and very very dangerous, but that’s only for people we don’t like, and we like you very much. And really, if any ghost threatens you, ever, you just need to point it out to me and I’ll eat it. Ask Natasha, I almost ate her once!”

Wanda’s surprised giggle was a wonder to behold, it was just so cute. Oh God, she was getting soft.

She kissed the kids heads. “We’ll get out of here, and we’ll be fine. And then we’re all going to therapy.”

“What’s therapy?” Pietro yawned. Wanda yawned too, and Jane noticed they were closing their eyes more slowly than earlier.

“Don’t sleep on me, kids,” she shook them gently. “Stay awake.”

But it wasn’t working. Their fears now gone, or at least under control, the adrenaline that was keeping them awake was rapidly vanishing. “Shit, kids, don’t sleep on me now.”

“You said a bad word,” warned Pietro, but his heart wasn’t into it.

Jane wanted to scream.

She tightened her form around the little children, trying to keep them as warm as she could, but to no avail.

Their only hope was getting them under her transformed self, but she had to act quickly. She had to position them and-

_“JAAAAAAAAAAAANE! PIETROOOO! WANDAAAAAAAA!”_

Oh, great, wonderful. She was now hallucinating. That was surreal, she didn’t even get that dizzy in the cold.

“JAAAAAAAAANE! JAAAAAAAAANE!”

The roaring sound of an engine being overworked made her jump, momentarily waking the kids up.

She wasn’t hallucinating, she was really hearing this.

“IN HERE!” she screamed. Of course, nobody could hear her, she reasoned. Still, she kept shouting, rallying the kids to shout with her until their small voices were hoarse. Leaving them was impossible, so she would make do.

And then, like a deus ex machina or a miracle, she didn’t know, maybe it was Heimdall all along, Darcy’s brand new van, which she’d bought on a whim for when they got to Culver, smashed into the wall and straight into what was the Cabin’s living room.

Relief washed over Jane, and it didn’t even matter that Darcy was just so mad and was threatening her with a locator collar.

The kids were going to be just fine.

Fuck it, she was getting drunk and celebrating as soon as they got home.

* * *

 

“This is not funny!”

Actually, yes, it was.

Pietro had a pimple on his chin and the world was apparently ending.

Or, at least, his date was ending before it even started.

“I can’t let Mary see me like this!” he shouted, prompting another loud round of laughter from the girls. Jane herself wanted to laugh, but Darcy’s look was keeping her from guffawing with the rest of them. Wanda had no such compunction.

“You look perfect like this!” she mocked him goodnaturedly, giggling when he slammed his door shut.

“You lot are impossible,” huffed Darcy. “Honestly, it’s just a pimple. With some makeup it won’t even be visible!” She hollered at him, but Pietro was apparently done with comments about his zit.

“Just wait until his voice starts to crack,” muttered Jane. “Ethan was an absolute nightmare, he’d almost pierce my eardrums with his squeaking.”

Oh, the memories. Oh, the pains.

Girls were much easier to deal with, honestly. At least they had practice.

“He’s fourteen, his voice won’t crack for a while… I think,” Darcy muttered, “I’ll get some makeup for the kid, see if we can save Mary from the atrocity of one little zit.”

The girls giggled from the sofa, Diana trying to suffocate the laughter into her skirt.

“Alas, American girls,” said Erik, nodding sagely, “can’t even handle one single blemish, the delicate flowers.”

“You mean Sokovian boys,” said Ol’ga.

Erik snorted. “Them too.”

* * *

 

Jane Foster, astronomer, astrophysicist and Giant Wolf from Outer Space hated the students of Culver University. And her colleagues. And the Dean, maybe.

Culver University probably hated her back.

“I swear they’re being dense on purpose!” She threw her hands up in the air.

“...Didn’t you say you had some brilliant students yesterday?” said Darcy.

“Well, yes,” admitted Jane. “But none of them are intern material! I’m getting desperate here and Culver is kind of breathing down my neck to just pick one and go away, you know?”

It was grating on her nerves. When she had expressed her desire to go to New Mexico to study the strange phenomena that created the biggest hubbub since the Iron Man debacle (at least for academics standards, she was pretty sure the Johns and Susans didn’t care), the campus had been all too eager to see her gone, even if they had phrased it a bit better.

So they _were_ kind of making all kinds of pressure on her to pick an intern and just… leave. _Please_.

But it wasn’t easy. By all means, any non-dimwit would have done, but the smart ones were keeping away from the most cuckoo teacher in history, and the applicants were not only very, very few, but especially unqualified. “What about Blake? He’s qualified, right? He’s studying Medicine.”

Jane grimaced. “Donald? He’s been making cow eyes at me, which, _no_. And also, he’s good but not that good. His calling is clearly not astrophysics.”

“Perez?”

“No.”

“...Mark?”

“Never.”

Darcy sighed. “Jane, it’s just six months! You just need to pick one, anyone.”

“Anyone will not do!” Jane huffed, exasperated. “I’m not going to let anyone into Alan’s life project.

“I know, I know,” she waved off Darcy’s stricken face. “You didn't mean it like that, I get it. But what if this is the real thing, Darcy? It’s Alan’s crowning moment, I’m not going to give it to the first student who proved himself not to be a complete dunderhead. Or an asshole. These readings we got? With the latest storms and all, they’re the closest thing we’ve seen to a Bifrost opening since the landing site we found in Sweden. And this time we might have the technology to do something about it. We’re so close, I feel it. So, you see, I can’t just pretend any will do. They won’t.”

Darcy deflated a bit, but nodded. “Yeah, I get it. I’m just-” she shrugged helplessly.

“I know,” said Jane, her hand on Darcy’s shoulder, “I get it. We’re all excited. Hell, Erik went ahead already. We’re there. But we’ll do it on our terms.”

“So, hey, I wouldn’t want to interrupt-”

Jane turned towards the voice. Ol’ga had become extremely light on her feet as of late, more than usual, due to her recent involvement with the local children ballet classes. Sometimes Jane marvelled at how far these girls had gotten. “But-” the girl twisted her hands a bit and smiled, “why don’t you just officially take Darcy as an intern and go with her? She’s been with you since day one, yes? And you, Mom,” she turned to Darcy, “you need 6 science credits to graduate, right?”

Darcy frowned. “I’m studying Political Science, I’m not a Science major. Also, graduating is like, the least of my concerns, I’ve got three degrees already.”

But Jane could already see how this was working. And she liked it, a lot. “That would be perfect, though!” she exclaimed. “You’d be the best candidate, Alan loved you! You’ve been our major supporter, Darcy, _it is_ perfect!”

Darcy hesitated, biting her lip. “But… the kids… They’ve just settled in, and they’ve started seeing their psychologist again, and it was a nightmare to find a properly qualified one in this town, I can’t imagine uprooting them and-”

Jane groaned. “They’re almost sixteen, we can-”

“Leave them with us?” offered Ol’ga, cutting her off. She smiled kindly at Darcy’s conflicted face. “Mom, I get it, but we’re seventy-five now, we can look after Pietro and Wanda just fine, they’re fine, we’ll be fine. It’s just six months and with Jane’s running abilities you’ll be literally a few hours away! Also, we can get Natasha on speed dial, how does that sound?”

 _Oh, smart girl,_ Jane thought. Involving the girlfriend was a surefire way to make Darcy fold like a wet paper towel.

Darcy hummed, and Jane could almost taste the victory. “It would be convenient to just get my credits like that…” she waved her finger. “We ask Pietro and Wanda first.”

“Of course,” Jane assured.

They both knew they’d say yes to a taste of independence anyway.

* * *

 

As loathe as she was to admit it, Jane Foster had sort of missed the times in which there was only ‘Jane and Darcy’ in the house.

She loved the screaming kids, as much as she wouldn’t say it out loud, but it had been so long since she’d been free to just sprawl on the floor at shit o'clock because she hadn’t slept for 3 days, to just leave the house unannounced and take a run, or to generally be a ‘ _very bad example for the spawns, Jane!_ ’.

She could even tolerate New Mexico’s sand between her toes or jammed into her fur. In fact, she was just so excited to have this kind of freedom again, that she almost crashed every few days, tired but otherwise satisfied.

Darcy wasn’t coping as well as she was.

“Seriously, Jane? Again? Seriously?!”

“Mblergh?” She groaned. Had she fallen asleep?

“Oh, yes,” huffed Darcy. “Very eloquent. ‘Blergh’, indeed. Did you seriously just crash after seven days of nonstop work? Again? It’s the fourth time in a row, I thought we’d been over this! Also, did you shower at all? You smell of wet dog!”

“...Really, Darcy? There’s just us, no kids in sight, I’ve done worse!”

Darcy’s mouth worked soundlessly for a couple seconds before she shook herself. “I just… you know what, Janey? You do what you want, but if you want breakfast you’re going to shower. You reek and we’re not going to the diner unless you’re presentable!”

Jane’s spine straightened. “I can always hunt outside!” she threatened. That was a big fat lie, coyotes and big birds didn’t taste as nice as the kind of fauna she was used to sample ‘back in the day’.

“You do that!” shouted Darcy. “Go for the roadkill! And _you_!” she rounded on a sleepy Erik, that looked as much as a tired deer in the headlights as humanly possible. “Don’t encourage her! Take better care of yourselves, idiots! I thought we’d stamped the stupid out of you back during your first internship!”

Erik had the decency to look sheepish, and Jane sniggered. This, however, just made Darcy puff out even more. “Honestly, am I the only adult here?”

“You’re almost one hundred, Darcy,” Erik pointed out helpfully.

“Exactly!” said Jane, nodding along.

“ _You’re almost three thousand years old_!”

“But I’m not human!”

Darcy raised one eyebrow. “In dog years you’d be 21,000, are you going to push it?”

“No,” Jane sulked. “But I’m an adult and have seniority, so, respectfully, _I do what I want_.”

The fight left her friend’s shoulders as quickly as it had come. “You’re right, I’m sorry.”

Jane sighed. She’d expected this to happen, sooner or later. Darcy had always been ‘motherly’, and having so many kids around had given her a clear idea of what a ‘parent’ should do all the time, and so she had carved her little niche as caretaker of their little gaggle. Now, without kids to care for or a set of rules to follow and enforce, the girl who always had a plan was left without a compass and directions. “Look, I get it, Darcy. You want to be useful and we all love that you take care of us, yes? But think of it as a vacation for you. _Relax_. We’ll live if we don’t shower for a while.

“You don’t need to be a mother all the time. Take a day off, call the girlfriend, _get drunk_ …!” To make her point, she walked up to her and hugged her friend, hard.

“...Fine you win,” Darcy said.

“Does that mean we get to drink ourselves stupid?” Erik asked, perplexed by the sudden change of topic.

“If you want,” Darcy said, but then her nose twitched. “Shower, Jane. You reek.”

* * *

 

Three months in and no less than twenty Auroras later, Jane Foster and her crew could pinpoint the exact moment another phenomenon was about to manifest.

They were no closer to finding how to use that, though.

One thing they knew: no Bifrost site was anywhere in this god forsaken desert. Not one.

Until there was.

And with it, came Thor.

* * *

 

“Jane, no!”

When Fenris had been younger, much, much younger, and had just been banished from Asgard by the Allfather, rage had been an omnipresent feeling within her, for about a solid thousand years.

Then, when the anger and fury had subsided and Fenris was left spent, tired and utterly alone, resignation had been her sole companion.

In the years spent with the voices in her head, Fenris had concocted her revenge on Asgard more times than she cared to count, determined to lay waste to all those that had dared defy her and her Mistress, until the only dream she had was to never wake.

Then Darcy happened, and Jane had been so certain these base instincts had now been buried so deeply she wasn’t that young creature anymore.

One whiff of the stranger’s scent, however, was enough to make her see red anew.

The smell was so obviously Asgardian, so painfully familiar and embedded in her memory that it was almost stuck permanently to her nostrils. Oh, how she’d both longed and dreaded the moment Asgard remembered that she was still on Midgard and came back for her.

And then, the Asgardian had the gall of refusing to even _acknowledge her for who she was_.

Oh, the indignity.

“I’m just going to bite him once, Darcy, I wouldn’t kill him _that bad_!” she snarled, shaking off her friend’s hands on her shoulders.

Erik was giving her dubious looks, but at least he knew better than trying to hold her.

“But you can’t!” whined Darcy. “Didn’t you say that Heimdall sees everything? What are they going to do if you use this one as a snack?!”

“As if,” Jane snorted. “He called for Heimdall the whole time before you tasered him, and the Bifrost didn’t open up. This one was cast out.”

“And what if he _isn’t_?” stressed Darcy. “They probably looked the other way whenever we took down the Nazis, you said it yourself we’re goats to them, but they won’t for him!”

“He could also be the answer to our Bridge problem, Jane,” shrugged Erik. “Maybe the real thing will help us some. And if not, they must come and get him somehow, right?”

 _“Fine!”_ Jane snarled, sitting down loudly and scraping the chair on the floor as obnoxiously as she could.

Thor chose that exact moment to stroll in, half naked, brandishing what was Jane’s towel and was going to be burned.

“You feel better, I see!” smiled Darcy, intercepting the towel right away before Jane could.

“I do, thank you,” Thor said, sending them what was supposed to be a charming smile that made Jane want to throw up.

“So, ‘Thor’,” started Erik, when it was clear that Jane wasn’t going to speak to him. “Who are you and what were you doing in the middle of the Desert?”

Jane stared at him incredulously, but Erik just gave her a helpless ‘normal people don’t assume aliens right away’.

Thor didn’t seem to notice or care about their exchange. “I am Thor of Asgard, the Golden Realm.”

“Uh-uh,” nodded Erik. It was nothing new.

“My father, Odin-”

Everybody in the room froze. Jane could hear a pin drop from the other side of the planet in this silence, but she didn’t even notice. “What?” she whispered.

Thor blinked. “Odin, the Allfather, King of Asgard, my father-”

“YOUR FUCKING WHAT?!” Impossible. He had to be the worst Liar to ever-

“JANE! NO!” Darcy cut into the red haze that had descended upon her, but Jane didn’t care one bit.

“How dare you lie like this, the Allfather-!” It was a nightmare. It couldn’t be real. _If it were, that meant-_ “Care how you speak!” Thor frowned and pointed his finger at her. “I am Thor Odinson, Heir to the Throne of Asgard!” “HOW DARE YOU!” she screamed louder. “Hela Odinsdottir is the _only_ True Heir of Asgard, you liar!”

Thor was visibly taken aback by the vehemence in her tone. “There is no Daughter of Odin in Asgard, Jane Foster. There is only Thor and Loki Odinson.”

“You lie.” Jane was done with him. She was going to eat him now. “You’re just a liar.”

She rose from the chair, but Darcy stepped once again in her path. “Darcy-” she warned.

Her friend raised her eyebrows challengingly.

The urge to smack something and the itching in her palms was growing steadily, though, and she found she no longer had patience for humaning for today.

“ _FINE_.” She shouted, and without another word slammed the door and went for Darcy’s van.

* * *

 

‘ _He had two spares, he never wanted Mistress to come back at all!_ ’

In her years of banishment, never had she thought Odin would dare spawn again. Of course, it was his right and, in hindsight, probably his duty to Asgard when the Heir was incapacitated, but two _of them._ And one of them had been named _Heir_.

She’d deluded herself into thinking Odin would die childless and that Mistress would have come to power, stupid to believe that Hela would have come for her.

She screamed to every single one of them. To Odin, to Frigga and to Heimdall, furious and scared. She hit anything in her way, which wasn’t much in the desert, and shouted until her throat felt raw and darkness had fallen.

It wasn’t fair.

Mistress had been promised the Throne since she was born. Since Odin had taken her hand and put a sword in it, taken the other hand and given her Mjolnir, and when he’d said ‘another Realm’ to them over and over.

That… celery stalk wasn’t fit to be a king. He wasn’t deserving of her Mistress’s place.

And she was damned if she let him get back to Asgard.

“Pardon my intrusion.”

Jane spun on her heels, ready to transform and kill whoever had sneaked up on her. They were in the desert and she was angry enough, an homicide would be justified.

But it wasn’t a human in front of her.

Well, he looked normal enough, but he was tall, and blue, with red eyes. She couldn’t smell him, it was as if he wasn’t even there, but she recognized the markings.

“Jotunn.” She curled her lips. A bit too big for her to swallow, but maybe she could quarter him.

“Miss… Foster, is it?” He made no indication of being anything but politely interested in her. “Such a curious human. So frail, yet so knowledgeable,” he continued, and Jane got it. Yet another idiot who hadn’t heard of her. _Stupid_.

“What if I am? And it’s _Doctor_ Foster.”

The Frost Giant smiled invitingly. “Well now, there’s no need to be so… brusque, _Doctor._ In fact, I suspect we’re much on the same side.”

Jane frowned suspiciously. “Side?” “But indeed!” he said genially. “We both don’t want that oaf to become King now, do we? It’s for the good of the Nine Realms, really.”

Jane blinked. Twice. Then she smirked. “I’m listening.”

* * *

 

“And then we’ll have a big, huge party after the race, and- Are you listening, Natalie?”

Natasha started from her seat in the most expensive restaurant in Monaco. In her pocket, her cellphone had kept vibrating for the last 10 minutes, successfully distracting her from the nightmare that was her mark, Tony Stark.

“Are you quite alright, Natalie?” asked kindly Miss Potts.

Natasha forced a smile. “Absolutely, I just-” Her phone rang again.

This time, however, with the table focused on her instead of Stark’s eccentric babbling, the vibration of her very non mission approved phone was heard loud and clear.

She forced a blush to her cheeks. “I’m… I’m so sorry, Mr Stark, I should have turned it off but- The timezone differences...”

Stark opened his mouth but Miss Potts cut him off. “Of course you can answer your phone, Natalie. Let’s take five and then order dinner, yes? It’s a good idea, right, Tony?”

Tony Stark looked like he minded very much, but just nodded.

As soon as Natasha rose from her seat, her hand already to her phone, though, he pinned her with a curious look.

“Boyfriend?” he waggled his eyebrows.

“Girlfriend, actually,” she answered distractedly, before freezing on her spot and wincing internally. Great, now Coulson was going to have her head and Clint to never let her live it down.

Of course, the gobsmacked face of Tony Stark was worth all the blunders. He even _spat his wine_. So, so worth it.

“Hello?” she smiled at the waiters while she exited the building to find somewhere private.

“WHY THE FUCK IS SHIELD HERE, NATASHA?!”

* * *

 

“Look, Natasha, what the fuck, it’s not my fault your girlfriend put you in the doghouse, yes?”

Clint tried time and time again to not find the situation funny, he really did, but it kind of _was_. Darcy must have peeled her skin for not having given her heads up about SHIELD.

Not that Nat could have, but there were about 45 seconds before Darcy started to listen to your defense if she was ranting.

“Then stop laughing.” Were Clint any other man, he would have whimpered at the tone.

“I’m not laughing.” If he giggled now it was over. _Keep it together_ , _Barton_ , he thought fiercely.

There was a beat of silence from the other side of the phone and a sigh. “Fine. So, what are you doing there?”

“...Are you fishing for information for your girlfriend?”

“Yes.”

He snorted. Typical Natasha. “Look, we’re just here to investigate a possible 084, it’s a Hammer by the way, a big metal Hammer, and then we’ll be out of everybody’s hair in no time.”

“You took Jane’s research.”

Clint paled. “We what?”

“According to Darcy, and I quote quite literally, ‘Some agent called Coulson and yes, I know who Phil Coulson is, Natasha, Clint talks about him a lot, came here with a tenner of thugs, got everything belonging to Jane including Alan’s notes and went fuck knows where’. They were lucky Jane had left for the day and Darcy is of the non confrontational sort with the Government, or I don’t think we’d have seen any of them anymore.”

Was it possible for a seasoned Agent of SHIELD to feel faint? Because Clint wasn’t doing so good, actually. The idea of Phil anywhere close to Jane sent shivers down his spine. He knew they were in New Mexico, supposedly to study the same anomalies they had been sent to check on, and that they probably would have met. He’d have liked to just, nod at them in the streets or something. Or, maybe, _not to have to defend his base from Jane the Danger_.

“Is she coming here?” he swallowed his pride and asked. There was no pride when confronted with a Giant Wolf. He’d rode one in his life, he wasn’t keen on meeting the pointy end of it.

“No, Darcy said she’s mad but she’s madder at the man living with them right now. But tell Coulson to be quick with those notes, she will be coming for them. It’s all they’ve got left of Alan.”

He nodded, even if Nat couldn’t see him. “God, this is crazy. We just angered the biggest threat on the planet.”

“As far as I’m concerned, yes you have.” Natasha sounded entirely too cheerful. “But don’t worry, she doesn’t chew when she eats you. Not too much anyway.”

Was he green at the gills? He couldn’t say. “Fuck, Natasha, you’re not filling me with confidence.”

“I wasn’t trying to,” she assured. “But since I’m a good friend, I’ll also give you another tip, if you tell me where your base is, yes?”

“So you can pass upon the information?”

“Absolutely.”

“You know what? I shouldn’t be telling you,” he grumbled.

“But you like me and Darcy, so you will tell us.”

“Fine. So, what’s the great tip?”

Natasha chuckled. “So, you know the man living with them, right now?”

Clint frowned. “Selvig?”

“No, no, there’s another man. Big, muscular, you can’t miss him. But anyway, that man. According to Darcy, he’s from Jane’s old home.”

Clint’s eyes widened and he definitely had to sit down at that. “What.” He could just picture Natasha’s face now. “Oh fuck you,” he groaned.

“You’re welcome, Barton.”

* * *

 

Thor did not deserve Mjolnir.

It had been only three days, and Jane already couldn’t picture a more undeserving King in the history of Asgard, Odin notwithstanding, but that could have been bias.

Brash, loud and otherwise unpleasant, Jane wondered if he could ever be a proper Leader. So far, the answer was no.

As much as she disliked Jotunn people, it truly was a blessing that _this_ Asgardian wasn’t going to step on the throne any time soon. She would make sure of that. She just needed to keep him around a little while longer.

Unfortunately for her, Thor was also extremely impatient. “I must leave,” he said that night. He said that _a lot._ In fact, he’d said it the whole three days they kept him travelling between the house and the hospital to make sure ‘he was alright’. The fact that he was as weak and useless as a human was still hilarious to Jane.

“Won’t you stay at least the night?” she asked immediately, despite the urge to kick him out. Erik and Darcy gave her bewildered looks. She could relate.

“Alas, I shan’t,” he shook his head, “I must retrieve Mjolnir and return to Asgard. Farewell, Jane Foster, Erik Selvig and Darcy Lewis.”

Jane frowned. “Do you even know where you should go?” Thor stopped in his tracks and turned to her expectantly.

Jane’s eyebrows rose to her hairline. “You were leaving without directions?” “I would have found some,” he said defensively. As if he had a _plan_.

For about a second, she had the unreasonable urge to smack his head, just to see if some sense could be knocked into it. Then she remembered the plan.

“You know what?” she sighed. “Go, just go. The guys at the diner said it was about 50 miles North. Have fun.”

Darcy was looking at her suspiciously, and yeah, maybe she wasn’t wrong. He smiled at her and nodded.

“...Jane, didn’t they say-” Darcy started, only to stop at her warning look. Her displeased face meant they were going to talk, later, but for now..

“Farewell, my friends.” Thor nodded and left in the darkness of the night.

Not even three seconds later, Darcy turned on her like a hound with blood. “What was that about, Jane?”

“Nothing,” she sniffed.

“Jane, you sent him the wrong way. You sent him back to the County Hospital! What the fuck.”

“Did I?” she asked innocently. At Darcy’s glare, she huffed. “Please reason, Darcy. Do you really want that celery to get to Mjolnir?”

“That’s not what celery means and you know it, but also, okay, so he’s not the best man you’ve ever met, go figure. But who are you to decide?”

“Who am- Darcy!” Her eyes flashed. “You know perfectly well-”

“And it’s none of your business! Who decides who becomes king? And if you say the Hammer I will hit you with my spoon.”

“You can’t expect me to just… bend over and be helpful to him! As you said, it’s none of my business if he gets to the Hammer or not!”

“That’s-” Darcy took a deep breath. “Okay, so. The Hammer decides, right?”

Jane nodded.

“And Thor is, we agree, not… exactly King material, _for now,_ ” she stressed at Jane’s slow smirk, bursting her bubble. “So, why just not… let him have a go at the thing?”

Jane’s eyes widened in alarm. “You can’t-”

Darcy shrugged. “Well, if he really is unworthy, your unfailing symbol of how cool your Mistress was will just reject him and stick to the ground, right?”

That was true, but- “Seriously?”

Her friend smiled helplessly. “I mean, no other way to find out, right? A good smack of reality might do him some good, at that.”

“So what should I do, just offer to give him a lift or something?”

* * *

 

“I appreciate you offering to help me, Lady Foster.”

“...No problem, don’t mention it. And it’s Jane.”

Wasn’t doing the right thing supposed to be surrounded by a feeling of relief and determination? Even the weather was trying to stop them.

Jane didn’t know why it had started raining all of sudden, but it didn’t even have the decency to be a gentle drizzle. No, it had to be almost hailing.

Yet another thing to add to the neverending list of ‘things a Giant Wolf didn’t like’: the desert _with_ rain. Absolutely disgusting.

The SHIELD camp looked as close as a hypothetical Area 51 as Jane could imagine. Save the dead aliens to dissect… for now.

“Mjolnir must be inside,” said Thor. “I sense it. I must go.”

And that made Jane’s hopes come crashing down again.

The Frost Giant had failed. He’d told her he would need three days to get Mjolnir out of the facility, that she just needed to keep the Heir away, but apparently he had been as worthy as Thor. In hindsight, leaving Mjolnir to non Aesir had been a bad plan, but she still firmly thought the Hammer was better away from Odin and his descendants’ grasp.

Better nobody to have it, if it meant going back to the Allfather or Thor.

“...You sure you want to go in there?” she asked. It was a very bad plan.

She glanced at Thor. Was he even going to be fine with no powers? He was a strong human, but a human nonetheless. Not that she cared much.

Still. “Thor, this is SHIELD, if they see you, if they catch you, they will _never_ let you go.”

“SHIELD?” Thor frowned in askance.

“Black Ops,” Jane answered. “Think of it as the group that will make the unsavory things for the good of the Nation.”

Thor’s eyes widened in realization. “I understand. Asgard had similar forces before the unification of the Nine Realms.”

“I am aware,” Jane grumbled, only to shake her head at Thor’s alarmed stare. “Don’t mind me. Go in, if you want. But Thor, I’m begging you, they can’t know where you come from or who you associated with. If they know it was us-”

Thor’s big hand landed on her shoulder. Had Jane been the frail girl she looked, she would have been sent against the windshield. “Fear not, Lady Jane,” Thor said, and it was the most solemn she’d ever seen him. “I shan’t say a word about you, Selvig and the Lady Darcy. You are safe and under my protection.” The idea of Jane, Fenris in disguise, under the protection of an Asgardian without powers was absolutely wild by itself, but the man believed it and the wolf wasn’t going to dissuade him of such right before such an important mission.

“Be careful in there,” Jane said finally. “I can’t come and save you if you fail. In fact, I’ll probably have to go, before they notice me.”

Thor nodded again. “Farewell.”

“Farewell.” Jane winced.

Oh this was going to be a disaster.

* * *

 

It was an unmitigated disaster.

From the alcove Jane had picked to observe the event, she had a somewhat clear view of the Hammer and the people around it, and oh yes it wasn’t going to end well at all.

Thor was good, he’d clearly trained for war as a child of Odin should, but without his strength to back him up, or the Mjolnir, he was clearly having difficulties.

Agent after agent came at him and lost, and for a second Jane thought he would make it, but then…

Her eyes widened when thunder started resonating through the skies and Thor’s triumphant hand close on the handle of the Hammer.

Relief and dread filled Jane, only to multiply when it was clear, that Thor wasn’t worthy.

* * *

 

Jane would never ask what they had bartered with Coulson to get Thor out.

She knew Darcy had spent an entire day at the phone with Natasha and then with Clint, until she was blue in the face.

But Thor had come out, lamenting of how his father had entered Odinsleep (which was great) and how his brother had ascended the Throne (which was bad. The idea of Frigga becoming Regent had apparently been discarded or not even considered, go figure).

So now, not only they were hosting him for the foreseeable future, but they were also under tighter surveillance, courtesy of Coulson and his ilk.

“I think we’ll manage,” said Erik cheerfully. He ignored Jane’s glare. “We feed the family, his appetite doesn’t compare to Pietro’s!” As if _the food_ was the problem.

In fact, Thor hadn’t eaten a single bite since he’d come back. He just moped in his room, sometimes launching something against the wall.

“Erik, we can’t keep him here! SHIELD is never going to let this go! Darcy is going to go spare, she hates this kind of attention.”

“Darcy will live,” said Darcy. “They’ll go away, sooner or later. When they find how boring our life is, especially since they took your stuff.”

“What if they don’t?”

They shrugged. “It’ll hardly be Thor’s fault. They were onto us from the beginning. And in case, we can just…” Darcy mimed Wanda’s gestures whenever she was about to use magic. “We’ll be fine.”

“Okay, fine,” Jane grumped. “Are we going to keep him forever, though?”

Darcy bit her lip, while Erik looked nonplussed. “Are they ever going to let him back?”

Jane flinched. “I have no idea.” Her banishment was pretty permanent and so was Hela’s, but was Odin just going to banish all of his offsprings whenever convenient? “I mean, the Allfather left him Mjolnir so I guess he will want him back, but we know what happened… Thor’s not worthy.”

“How does that work, anyway?” asked Erik, very interested. “Do you become worthy or just, is it an innate ability?”

Jane shrugged. “I don’t know, Mistress was always able to lift it whenever she wanted.”

“Did you ever try?” asked Darcy.

Jane scoffed, her hand waving in a dismissing gesture. “I was hardly the one who could hold the Hammer of Stars, Darcy. And I didn’t care.”

Another crash was heard from above. This time the victim was probably the desk chair.

“Seriously, though,” mused Erik, “someone's going to need to speak to him before he drives himself spare.”

Jane frowned and then proceeded to studiously ignore the hopeful looks they sent her way.

It worked for about ten seconds. “ _Fine, I’ll do it._ ”

The things she did for her people, seriously.

* * *

 

“May I come in, Thor?”

The words came out of her mouth like she was being tortured, judging from Darcy’s eye-roll and Erik’s sigh.

But she still politely waited about ten seconds before entering the room, despite not having received an answer.

“Thor? Are you alright?” Another smash.

She winced and peered inside.

The room wasn’t in disarray like she had expected. The sounds she had attributed to furniture being sent flying across the room were instead Thor’s fists, judging by their state. And just how hard must have he swung that arm to make a dent in the wall…?

“Ah… I see it’s not a good time, do you want to work on that and I’ll come back later?”

“Fear not, Lady Jane,” said Thor. “It is not at you that my anger is pointed.”

Well, good to know, really. Still, Jane shrugged and made herself comfortable on the floor. Thor waited a few seconds before joining her.

“So…” started Jane. “Do you want to talk about it?”

A part of her really didn’t want him to, content to just… relish in the fact that the Heir Odin had chosen wasn’t ready for the destiny he’d been groomed for. Hela had been worthy up until she’d been banished, after all.

But she couldn’t deny that Thor was in a rough patch for now, and that she kind of owed him for having plotted against him with Jotunn, if only for about three days.

“Not really,” he said. “My brother, Loki, came to visit me in prison.”

Jane’s eyes widened in alarm. “Loki Laufeyson?”

Thor frowned confused. “Nay, Loki Odinson, my brother. I know no Son of Laufey.”

But Jane’s mind was going back to her meeting with the Jotunn, how he’d never claimed to be not Aesir (and how would she doubt that, with his blue skin and red eyes?). What were the chances of two people called Loki conveniently involved into this mess? It bore investigating, but later.

“I… see. Why did he come? Are they taking you home?”

His shoulders slumped and he shook his head. In his eyes, she could see fresh tears. “Nay. I am forever banished. The Allfather has entered Odinsleep, and they don’t know if he’ll ever recover. My brother is now King of Asgard.”

Jane’s spine straightened. _Oh that little fucker_. Her previous suspicions were justified after all. That treacherous monster had used her to get on Asgard’s throne! And with Odin not dead, her Mistress couldn’t come and challenge him. _Oh, how dared he_.

“Can’t your brother rescind your banishment? I would think the Allfather would be able to.”

Thor’s frown didn’t ease. “Nay, a war with Jotunnheim is on the line, unless I am banished.”

“War on the Jotunn?” Jane gasped. “Boy, how did you fuck up so bad? They didn’t even look our way when we went for Hellheim.”

Thor sighed loudly. “I was young and stupid.”

“That was barely a week ago.”

Something sparked into Thor’s eyes at that moment, and Jane finally saw something different from bluster behind the pain and the sorrow. “You really do not like me, Jane Foster.”

Ah. She had been found out. Jane coughed, almost tempted to blush. “Yeah, I really really don’t like you. But it’s not personal, mind. Not really.”

“Why?”

This time, it was Jane the one who sighed and interrupted eye contact. She groaned. “How do I prove this to you? You’ll think I’m full of shit.”

But Thor was still waiting, and what the hell. “Very well. So. Three thousand years ago, when you weren’t born or even a thought in your father’s tiny brain- No, I speak as I wish, don’t interrupt me. - I was born Fenris and given as a… companion to Hela Odinsdottir, Heir of Asgard.

“It wasn’t long until she became my only friend and I hers, and a breath later we were together on the battlefield. Hela Odinsdottir, Future Queen of Asgard and Fenris, her most trusted General. We, together with Odin, unified the nine realms. They bowed before us, trembled at our sight and cowered like the ants they were. We were unstoppable. Odin, oh Odin was so proud of us. His greatest Conqueror, he called her. ”

She cleared her throat, ignoring the burning of her eyes. “And then we messed up, I think. I see no other explanation, because one day Mistress was revered, the next she was in prison, I was in chains, our soldiers slaughtered before our eyes. No matter what Hela said to him, Odin didn’t care. He sent her away, bound her magic. And then he banished me here, forever.”

His look of abject horror was something she’d have been glad to see up until three days ago. Not it just felt like a hollow victory, having been exposed this much. “And then you come, telling me that Odin had no plan to ever forgive us, to ever see us back. He had _you_. I languished in this prison for three thousand years to see a blonde golden retriever on my Mistress’s throne. So yes, I do not really like you. But it’s not you. It’s just… It’s not _fair_.”

She shrugged. “And I realize it’s stupid, since Odin seems to be changing Heir every now and then, apparently, you just went out of season a tad earlier, but here I am. I’ll never be your number one fan. But I get it. I never declared war on the Jotuns, but I get it.”

Thor just looked at her gravely, speechless. Jane didn’t want to hear him talk as well, she was pretty sure he was going to ruin the moment. She cleared her throat again and nudged him as a gesture of goodwill.

This shook him out of his funk. “You speak the truth?”

“It’s the story I know. This is my truth.” She tried to smile, but by his flinch her teeth must have peeked a bit more than she wanted to. “I don’t think Odin will ever tell you, if he hasn’t in all these years, and I can’t give you any proof for now. But in case you back to Asgard, you can ask Heimdall. He did witness the whole thing.” She just hoped he’d actually be honest with Thor. Heimdall had always struck her as a dependable guy, despite the three thousands years of silence.

Thor gave her half a smile. “I fear that ship has sailed, Jane Fenris. For I am not worthy, I do not see myself in Asgard. I do not know how to ever deserve it.”

Jane eyed the destroyed wall behind his shoulders. “We’ll start with repairing the wall, we don’t have Wizards or Asgardian builders to fix this.”

Thor blushed. “Indeed. Thank you for sharing your truth with me, Lady Fenris.”

She rolled her eyes. “Eh, I’ve done a lot of past sharing lately. Hell, I think I’ve become a meme to my family by now. Besides, we’re fellow inmates now, we’ll stick together, for now.”

The wall could be fixed. And maybe even her dislike for Thor.

Her nose wrinkled. No, not that.

* * *

 

‘Lady Jane Fenris’, as Thor had started to call her, would have loved to say that in the next two months, everything had been fine.

Unfortunately, Thor wasn’t taking the whole ‘human’ period very well. Asgard’s customs were very different from Midgard’s, Jane could relate on that, but while she’d never been forced to participate or even learn, she was a wolf, Thor had. And he was having a lot of difficulties with the conflicting notions.

And to control his strength.

He wasn’t superpowered by any means, Jane was certain Natasha would land him on his ass within three seconds, and probably her girls would be able to take him down with hardly a sweat, but Thor was still a very big man in peak conditions. He was strong enough, if he wanted. He often did.

Like that day.

“In Asgard,” he said. “We make it a competition.”

“Cup devastation,” deadpanned Jane, her eyes on the broken china on the floor.

“The mugs are stronger in Asgard,” he defended.

“I’m sure,” snorted Erik. “Do they hold drinking contests, in Asgard?”

Thor laughed loudly. “They do indeed, Erik Selvig. We should go and feast!”

They did feast that night.

It was more Darcy and Jane pretending to feel any kind of buzz, while a tipsy Thor cheered a shit faced drunk Erik Selvig as he sang the stories of the Vikings he’d grown up with.

While they drank, keeping an eye on the happy duo, somebody slid on the chair beside her table.

“Fancy meeting you there,” Jane huffed. “Barton.”

Darcy immediately turned to him. “Clint!”

“Hey Darcy! Jane,” he nodded to them. “I wanted to let you know that most of us are leaving.”

Jane’s beer went into the wrong pipe and she coughed. That was weird. SHIELD never went anywhere without getting what they wanted.

“Any problems?” Darcy frowned. Jane resisted the urge to snort. Any problem SHIELD had was probably a boon, but since Clint really didn’t want to hear the Nazi part (and even Natasha hadn’t managed to uncover much to prove it to him), she wasn’t going to say it out loud.

“Nah, but we can’t move the Hammer, so we’re leaving a small contingent just in case. But we’re leaving.”

“I see,” nodded Jane. “So you decided to cut your losses.”

Barton scratched his head. “If you want to call it that.”

“Why tell us, birdie?” Jane asked suspiciously.

The man shrugged. “‘s not like you wouldn’t have noticed, sooner or later. Now don’t think I’m passing information here, Coulson was coming to give you your stuff back tomorrow anyway.”

“Huh.” That was another surprise. She had frankly expected to have to get those files back herself. _They must really want out of this place_ , she thought.

“TO ASGARD!”

Everyone at the table jumped. To their horror, the five minutes they had been distracted, Thor and Erik had started undressing.

“Bwahaha!” Clint’s laughter was probably louder than Erik’s screams. “Have fun with that, girls.”

Erik’s shirt landed somewhere behind the bar counter.

“Oh my God.”

* * *

 

The next day Coulson did, indeed, send a lackey to give Jane every single piece of equipment back.

The notes were missing.

“You must be joking, Minion,” Jane snarled. “Where’s my whole work? My life? _My father’s life_?!”

If they thought this was going to be enough, they had another one coming. Her face was a mask of fury, her eyes narrowed and her lips curled up. One wrong move, and the fucking liar was toast.

“We are making a great concession by giving you these back, Doctor Foster,” the Agent had the gall to say. “You just don’t understand the importance of-”

“YOU OWE ME MY RESEARCH!” she shouted. Not even Darcy was stepping between her and her victim today. Fuck it.

The Agent’s eyes widened. He had apparently believed that by returning what they’d deemed unimportant would have been enough to get the Scientists’ gratitude. “Wheres’ Coulson?”

“Ma’am, Agent Coulson is not available at the mo-” Without thinking, Jane grabbed the Agent’s collar, who felt himself being unexpectedly lifted off the ground. His eyes widened further and he pathetically tried to pry her grip loose.

“Where is Coulson, you useless maggot!” For good measure, she shook him a bit as she squeezed.

“I don’t know!” he wheezed. “I just… I was just sent to give this back and scare you a bit.”

“Well, I’m absolutely terrified,” Jane snarled sarcastically. “What else do you know?”

“Nothing, nothing I swear! Please let me go!”

“ _Thank you_ ,” she said, dropping him to the ground. He fell unceremoniously and scrambled away from her.

She turned to her friends and Thor, who all had some varying degree of confusion and anger on their faces. “You heard that?” They nodded. “Get the van, we’re going to the crash site. We’re getting _my stuff and Thor’s_ back.”

* * *

 

When they got to the crash site, though, there was nothing there.

Instead, where the SHIELD facility had been not two days earlier, was now a huge crater with a perfectly circular hole on the ground where the Hammer had been.

_“Those absolute wankers!”_

* * *

 

“Sir, I am telling you,” Clint started, again. “This is the worst idea we could have and we absolutely need to either get a plane and run, or go back and give Foster her things. Right now.”

Coulson sighed, and Clint just knew it had been a moot point all along. “I’m as impressed as you are about stealing from Doctor Foster, but it’s the orders.”

“ _No, sir, you don’t understand_.” At the speed the cars and the armoured truck in the middle of their procession were going, Jane the Danger was going to reach them in one hour, two tops if she didn’t cotton on what was happening.

There was barely time to cross the state border.

If Jane wanted to really catch up, she would. And then, especially if she ran without Darcy along, she would get to them. And then there would be hell to pay. Oh, they shouldn’t have touched her notes. They were her precious treasure.

Fuck.

He quickly calculated the number of men he was going to lose for this fucking mission. Pierce was going to answer to him if he lived. He and his fucking stupid ideas. Damn it, Jane had never spared witnesses. He was going to call Laura. Right now.

But then, Clint Barton looked just ahead of him.

“Sir-” he said. Whatever was in front of them, wasn’t human. It wasn’t Jane. And it wasn’t a mirage, either.

“What, Barton.”

“Sir, what the fuck is that?”

* * *

 

“Go faster, Darcy, faster!”

“We’re going as fast as we can!”

It must have looked something straight out of a movie, to the unknowing observer: a van speeding to never seen before velocity in the smack middle of the desert, with only dust and wind, driven by a woman with an impressively colourful woollen hat.

“They’ll reach the state line before we can reach them,” said Erik from the backseat, Thor to his left.

“They won’t,” exclaimed Darcy. “We’re onto them.”

But they both knew it was a big fat lie. Their van was sturdy and Darcy was driving like a madwoman, but SHIELD had surely bigger, faster vehicles and the support of the Government.

If only she could transform, she’d catch up in no time. But transforming now would only give SHIELD something to be actually interested in. Best they focus on the Einstein Rosen Bridge than trying to make sense of her family, before she was forced to slaughter them all and upset Darcy and her girlfriend.

She growled in frustration, making Thor jump and look at her strangely. Her smile widened and she turned to face him.

“Jane, relax,” sighed Erik, used to her outbursts by now. It was sad she couldn’t really scare him anymore, but he’d always been made of stronger stuff. “Save your energy for Coulson, yes?”

“I absolutely will.” Her lips curled over her teeth.

“Hey, guys…” Darcy’s voice was higher than five seconds ago. “Are we supposed to catch up this quick? Because I see black cars right in front of us.”

“What?!”

It was true. Black cars and a couple of jet black big menacing trucks were straight in front of them, and they weren’t moving.

“Something is wrong,” Thor whispered.

BOOM.

Without prompting, and without Jane actually doing anything this time, one of the SUVs that had been on the front burst into flames.

“What the fu-”

BOOM.

Another followed suit, and a third was launched into the air, crashlanding less than ten feet from their van.

They could only gape as the SUV’s door opened swiftly and a boot-clad foot poked out of it.

 _“Fuuuck,”_ Jane’s hearing picked up the faint groaning and she gasped. “Fuck, it’s Barton.”

“WHAT?” Darcy’s voice was going to bust her eardrum today.

They exited the van, their ire forgotten for the moment. While she and Darcy focused on Barton, Erik stayed behind.

The smell of smoke was the first thing that she felt, followed by the disgusting one of overcooked flesh, human at that. The smoke was rising faintly over their heads, and Jane was thankful the car hadn’t exploded yet, it certainly held enough gas to make a very big boom.

She climbed the vehicle surreptitiously, careful not to overdo it in case there was somebody else in the vehicle. Case in point.

“Fuck, I knew you’d catch up,” groaned Clint, stuck in the car upside down. At the wheel, Coulson was unconscious and a faint smell of blood was pouring out of him. He needed a doctor.

“I’ll get you out, birdass. Hold tight and don’t make weird movements. Is Coulson out or…?”

“Out. I think. He’s breathing, somewhat.”

Jane nodded. “Okay, good. Hold still.”

She grabbed the car door’s handle and pulled. It creaked, squeaked and then bent.

First, she took out Clint, and then she lowered herself into the car to grab the unconscious Agent. “You’re making me sweat for these notes, are you?” she muttered, her grip firm on her fireman carry.

Darcy started patching the two men up as much as she could, but there wasn’t much she could do for Coulson, he needed medical attention, and soon.

“Thanks,” Clint coughed. “Fuck, I thought we’d have to defend against _you, not against him_.”

“Who’s him?”

Clint shook his head. “Hell if I know. We were going away, sorry ‘bout that by the way, and suddenly there’s this rainbow shit in the sky and BAM, a giant metal man right in front of our path.”

Jane paled. It- It couldn’t be.

“M-metal man, you said?”

Clint and Darcy eyed her. “Yeah… Are you okay, Foster? You look pale.”

No, she was not okay. “He called the Destroyer,” she whispered fearfully. This was a disaster.

“No time to explain,” she said abruptly. With a swift movement, she grabbed Coulson and Clint, ignored the protests coming from the marksman and put them in the back of the van. “Shut up,” she ordered. “Erik, jump in the van, now. Darcy, take the wheel. We’re leaving. Now.”

“What?” Darcy exclaimed. “Jane, you can’t be serious!”

“I am abso-fucking-lutely serious, Darcy. That fool Odinson or Laufeyson or whatever he’s called summoned the Destroyer! That thing was created to finish people off. _People like me_. We’re not staying. Sucks for the agents, but we’re leaving.”

It was probably the first time she showed that much fear in front of Darcy, but it just didn’t matter in the face of certain death. A honorable fighter she might be, but she had no intention of ending up Jotun barbecue today. Nor ever.

In the end, her friend nodded. “Okay, we… we must run. How far?” “Far,” Jane muttered.

The girl started the ignition and Jane had about one moment of relief, for the Destroyer was surely focused on something else or they’d be stew by now when-

“Wait a minute, where’s Thor?”

Oh no.

* * *

 

Had Fenris in her life ever considered to die for an Odinson? Three thousand years ago, the answer would have been yes, of course. Fenris would have died for her Mistress, and in part for Odin, too.

Now? She would have laughed to the face of any Odinson who asked her to.

And yet, _here she was_. Climbing the wasteland of destroyed scraps of metal to find an Asgardian whose only job had been to stick close to them and don’t get lost.

 _Damn you, Thor Odinson_.

Jane snarled. She was going to die, to find his fucking corpse in a ditch somewhere and be killed by the Destroyer while she tried to carry his sorry dead ass away.

Once again, she briefly considered transforming and then discarded the thought immediately. She had no idea what orders the automaton had been given, but she wasn’t going to risk activating an old alarm Odin might have put just in case he decided the Wolf needed a good lesson or something.

“Thor!” she screamed. “Where the fuck are you? We have to go!”

Nothing. Thor had vanished. After a few minutes, it was clear that he wasn’t going to answer. “Fuck,” Jane said. She couldn’t look for him any longer, lest the monster noticed her. Already she couldn’t hear any survivor of the SHIELD contingent.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, and made her way back.

As she tried to reach her friends, though, something soared through the sky and landed where the wreckage of Coulson’t SUV was with a sickening crunch.

“ _THOR!_ ”

In a flash, Jane was at his side, trying to steady him.

He didn’t look good. A bit charred and one or two ribs were definitely very broken, but he was alive still.

“We have to go, Thor,” she whispered urgently. “The Destroyer can’t be beaten. Only the Destroyer can kill the Destroyer. This thing is born to kill the rogue like us. _We have to go_!”

“Nay,” he coughed and spat blood. Oh, no good. “He’ll go after the town next. He promised to let you go if I die. Run, Jane Fenris.”

A cold shiver ran through Jane’s back. _What?_ That was absurd. What had this Loki in mind? A bag full of cats?

“Indeed,” the voice she recognized as Loki Laufeyson said. “Leave the oaf to die, Doctor Foster. The Hammer belonged to Asgard, I had to take it back, nothing personal. Give me Thor, and I’ll even let you keep the Agents you’re hiding. My… controversy is not with them.”

And it was sensible. It absolutely made a lot of sense, but before she could see the reason in Thor’s words, before she could even consider running and before she could even realize that a hundred years with a little girl had changed her something fierce, her mouth opened.

“IS THIS WHAT TRANSPIRES IN ASGARD? IS BANISHMENT NOT ENOUGH? Extermination, of course! Like father like son, I see!”

It… was apparently the wrong thing to say, because next thing she knew, she and Thor were flying.

“Daddy issues, I see,” she grumbled. Her body twisted and rolled and she managed to cushion her landing, grabbing Thor’s almost limp body. “Don’t faint on me, buddy, we need to get out of here!”

“Such an unusual human you are, Jane Foster. I’m sorry, Doctor Jane Foster. And yet, you’ll die today. Along with your friends.”

“NO!” Thor screamed. He freed himself from Jane’s grip and staggered forward. “Take me, brother. It’s my fault.”

The Destroyer paused, his furnace of a brain igniting and sparking with fire.

“So be it,” said the Allfather, and the monster shot through the Heir of Asgard.

Jane, Wolf from Outer Space, watched as his body crumpled to the ground, lifeless.

“ _YOU FUCKER_!”

The Destroyer, however, didn’t care about her anymore. He turned around, ready to return to Asgard.

A thunder rumbled in the distance.

A flash of lightning, and from the metal of the SHIELD contingent, the Hammer of the Dying Star rose in an arc.

As one, Jane and the monster watched as it rose higher and higher, until it changed trajectory and squarely landed in Thor’s awaiting hand.

Thor Odinson was alive, he was back and he was _worthy_.

* * *

 

“I must leave, I need to stop my brother and his madness.”

They had survived… somehow.

“You must,” Jane nodded. “We must get to a Hospital, Agent Coulson’s not doing so good.”

Thor nodded solemnly back, “I hope he recovers. Farewell, Jane Fenris.”

Jane smiled slightly. “Farewell, Thor Odinson, not a celery.”

He laughed, then. “HEIMDALL, OPEN THE BIFROST!”

And he was gone.

* * *

 

The soft beep of the monitor was a sound Clint Barton was intimately familiar with.

As a black ops agent, he’d seen a lot of those. More often than not, though, it was him on the bed, not his handler.

A tap on his shoulder made him turn. Natasha had entered the room with her usual soft step, not that he’d have heard her, they’d taken his hearing aids to fix them up earlier.

When his partner noticed, she signed _“ How’s Phil doing?”_

“Better,” he said, while signing. “He woke up this morning, drank something. The doctors say he should rest a bit more. His injuries are fine, now. Man, if only I’d been at the wheel.”

He still saw it in his dreams, when he closed his eyes. The monster razing the whole ground and hitting their car on Phil’s side, him too slow to react and them ricocheting inside the metal trap. They were lucky these SUVs were born to withstand a serious military assault, or they’d have met their end there and then.

“You’d be in that bed, then,” she shrugged.

Clint wouldn’t have cared. Taking the hits was his job, not Phil’s.

“Foster and Darcy?” he asked.

When they’d gotten to the County Hospital and he’d called SHIELD for extraction, the girls had been outside the OR where Phil was being operated on. He should have said something to them, but he was just… numb. Phil was in there and he should have been in his place.

Then reinforcements had come and he hadn’t found a second to say his goodbyes, as worried as he was.

“Back to Culver. Darcy was relieved to get some peace, at last.”

“Mmh. I wonder how she expects to find any with that family of hers.”

Natasha’s face broke into a smile. “We are a bit weird, yes.” And Clint didn’t mean it that way, and he knew Natasha knew.

Coulson chose that exact moment to wake up again. “Agent Barton, you should be in bed.” At least, that’s what Clint thought he’d said, he was a great lip reader, but he ignored it.

“You should be sleeping, Phil,” he accused.

Natasha and Phil winced. “I see you don’t have your hearing aids, Barton,” Phil mouthed slowly.

“They’re fixing them, one of them got busted in the explosion.” Again. Clint really really hated being in the middle of explosions, especially if he was the target.

His handler tried to sit up unsuccessfully a few times, only to capitulate and raise the medical bed instead. “Sitrep, Agent Barton.”

Clint sighed, really loudly. Here he was, this man just woken up from being partially blown up, asking for a sitrep instead of eating apple puree or something. Still, he complied. “Met hostile Asgardian forces on our way to base. Asgardian ‘Destroyer’ killed our whole contingent. Foster and her crew saved us. Foster’s friend, Donald Blake aka Thor Odinson, Asgardian, dispelled the situation before taking the 084 and returning to his planet with the hostile.”

Coulson’s eyes widened a fraction, which meant absolute surprise on his face. Even his recruiting Natasha had earned a mere eyeroll. “No survivors?”

"Just us, sir,” he confirmed somberly. He even liked some of those guys, poor devils.

Phil sighed and then his eyes narrowed. “You had warned me, Barton.”

“Sir?”

His frown wasn’t easing, and it looked like Phil was seeing a thousand shadows instead of him and Natasha in that room. “You knew something bad was going to happen.”

Natasha tensed minutely and clenched a hand. Clint winced. “To be fair, sir, that was absolutely not what I was expecting.”

“What were you expecting, exactly?”

Clint hesitated. He had been debating on telling Phil since moment one, only keeping quiet for Darcy and the kids, and Natasha, of course, his partner for years. He’d never openly lied to Phil.

Of course, Phil didn’t know about Laura and his kids, only Fury did and to some extent his partner, and by the same token he knew about her family and kept it a secret.

Mind, his family was not a cove of Super powered individuals marshalled by a woman who couldn’t be killed and another who was both immortal _and possibly humanivore._ But he did owe them his life too, now, and not only Pietro and Wanda’s wellbeing and the whole family had never created any kind of problem.

“I can’t say, sir,” his shoulders slumped. As much as he wanted to be open with his handler, it really wasn’t his secret to tell.

He eyed Natasha for a long time, until she pursed her lips and mimed a mouth shut, which, yes, he knew how to be subtle, he just didn’t want to, thank you.

Phil’s attention focused on Natasha, then, his intent eyes not leaving her face.

“I can’t say, sir,” she shrugged. “It’s not my secret.”

 _Yes it is, Natasha!_ thought Clint fiercely, his eyes willing holes in the back of her head. The woman stared back unimpressed. Then, she smirked. “Besides, this place isn’t safe.”

Clint’s face smacked the bedside table, food tray included. “Are you fucking serious, Nat?”

Her eyes and posture told him that yes, yes she was completely serious and she was about to tell their convalescent handler that ludicrous theory of hers.

Phil didn’t seem as confused as he expected. “What am I missing here, Barton?”

“It’s nothing, Phil,” he glared at his partner, who only blinked innocently. “It’s a crazy theory about SHIELD that Nat and her girlfriend have been spreading around.”

Phil only mouthed the world ‘girlfriend’ once, then nodded. “Close the door, Romanoff, I want to hear it.”

* * *

 

August passed way too quick for Jane Foster, Wolf from Outer Space, who had barely returned one month ago from New Mexico without her notes and with almost to no equipment.

Oh, she had rewritten everything down, what with the help of Selvig and Darcy, but losing Alan’s writings and the original copies had stung.

She was going to get her revenge, sooner or later, she could wait a bit longer.

According to Darcy, who had kept in contact with Natasha nearly every day (“ _I miss her!_ ”), Phil Coulson had completely recovered and was very interested in the HYDRA theory they’d shared with him. Natasha herself had been assigned to some quiet investigating.

Which was all well and good, until SHIELD started meddling into their business yet again.

“It’s the worst idea ever, Erik!” Darcy said, waving her hands in the air.

“It’s not! It’s actually a very good plan.”

Jane and Anya shared a glance and sat down. This was going to take a long time.

Just three days ago, SHIELD had ‘invited’ Doctor Selvig to a top secret facility to work for them. The offer had come from Pierce himself, who was apparently the top dog (even higher than the infamous Fury). Erik had been promised unlimited funding as long as he worked on a little project of theirs, which was all classified of course.

“It’s a great way into SHIELD, Darcy!” defended Erik. “And think about it, unlimited funding! We could get somewhere with their technology at our disposal!”

Darcy wasn’t enthused. “We already have people in SHIELD! Trained people! Not counting Natasha and Clint, I do still have contacts around!”

Erik huffed and looked at her pleadingly, an expression that really clashed with the fact that he could very well be their father, judging by the looks alone.

Secretly, Jane agreed with Darcy. It was too dangerous and who knew what Pierce wanted from Erik anyway. But she wasn’t his mother, not really, and Erik didn’t need one anyway.

“I think…” and here she looked at Darcy apologetically. “That you need to make your own choices. You’re an adult, you’ve always been, so we have no right to stop you, if you wanted.”

Erik seemed surprised. “R-Right! Exactly.” He cleared his throat. “I’m going. It’s going to be fine!”

* * *

 

“Repeat that again, Agent Coulson, _and make it believable_.”

Jane’s fingers dug into the doorframe, right by Coulson’s head, until the frame splintered.

Jane didn’t bleed nor blink. Coulson didn’t blink either.

He’d come to their house in the middle of the night, as Agents were wont to doing all the time with them, spouting nonsense about explosions and moving her to Tromso. Of course, she wasn’t going to hear a single word more if he didn’t start taking her seriously.

“Doctor Foster, time is of essence here.”

Jane’s heels dug sharply into the floor, and Coulson raised one eyebrow. Oh, so he wasn’t completely impervious.

“Doctor, if you don’t come with us we’ll have to remove you.”

At first, Jane thought she’d heard it wrong. What a laughable idea. Them, moving her from her own house. This she had to see. Her eyebrows rose in challenge.

Coulson made a gesture and a burly man stepped forward. It was then, that her lips twitched and she couldn’t hold it in anymore.

It started as a guffaw, and it became full blown laughter when the man physically tried to drag her. By the time Coulson called for Clint to join the procedure, she was in stitches.

“This is too funny, Coulson,” she laughed.

The Agent’s face, which had remained impassive throughout the whole debate, was now showing a faint shock.

Barton groaned. “Sir, do I really need to do that? She’s not going to move.”

“No, I’m not,” Jane confirmed. It was funny, but only to a point. “But you can get me to move if you explain exactly why you’re trying to send me to Norway. That would be a great start.”

Agent Coulson looked at her for a very long time.

Agent mountain and Barton had stopped trying by now, but while Clint looked apologetic, the other one had started posturing menacingly, as if she couldn’t bend him as tight as a pretzel.

“Do you want to come in, Coulson?” Jane asked brusquely, when it was clear he wasn’t going to say anything more. “We’re getting nowhere here, and my patience is thinning.”

He smiled politely, as if he’d just gotten an amazing boon. At his side, Clint had made a choking noise, clearly remembering the last time he’d been invited in. This time, they both knew, Jane had also a speedster and a Mind-Reader on her side. She wasn’t the one who was going to lose the confrontation today, it was only a matter of how much they’d give away.

“Please come in,” she smiled ferally back, her white teeth gleaming in the dim light.

Coulson and Clint followed her, the other man stayed behind.

The living room was packed. Every member of their family had gathered in various states of undress (the girls had shawls, Darcy hadn’t bothered) and was watching the men intently.

If they wanted to wave at Clint, they didn’t show it.

“Everyone,” Jane said genially. “This is Agent Coulson. He wants us to move to Norway for no reason at all!”

All the eyes moved from her to the man in question, who had the decency to look embarrassed. “We… SHIELD was unaware you had so many… relatives, Doctor Foster.” He said blandly. His eyes hadn’t stopped bouncing off the girls, the twins, Darcy and reevaluating everything he knew about them. He’d miscalculated greatly, apparently.

“Why are we moving, Agent Coulson?” asked Anya politely from behind them. Behind the mask, her shrewd eyes had probably counted how many weapons he hand and how many times they could safely stab him.

Had Jane been human, or had she had a more conventional moral compass, she would have cared.

The Agent was now very much surrounded. Even if Clint decided he wasn’t letting the handler die, if the girls decided he was expendable, there wasn’t much the two of them could do.

Coulson knew it.

Jane counted on him knowing.

Finally, the man gave in. He took out his briefcase and as soon as he opened it, pictures and files appeared out of holograms. A glowing blue cube was projected in the air. “A few hours ago, a facility in the Mojave Desert encountered a… problem. Loki of Asgard,” he nodded at Jane’s tensing. “Yes, Loki of Asgard was sighted at the facility, took possession of the Tesseract.” The cube vanished. Jane paled. _She knew that thing_.

“As somebody who’s survived their first encounter with Loki, we would like to move you and your… family… to Norway, to a secret facility where you’d be safe.”

Jane’s and the girls’ eyebrows had risen higher and higher the more Coulson talked. One of them smiled at the idea of being ‘safe’, but the situation was grave enough.

“Wait a tick, here,” interrupted Darcy. “Erik was at that facility! Is he alright?”

Jane’s face whipped to Coulson, eyes narrowed expectantly.

Coulson’s bland face didn’t falter, despite him clearly not knowing they knew, but Clint’s poker face did.

Oh, no.

Darcy’s hands flew to her mouth. “Oh no, Erik.”

The girls tensed.

“Coulson-” Jane started dangerously. Erik was supposed to be _fine_.

The man twitched. “Doctor Selvig has been taken by the hostile and their location is unknown at this time. SHIELD is doing their best to see Doctor Selvig returned to you.”

“Yeah, those of us left,” grumbled Clint, very quietly.

Unfortunately for him, not quiet enough for a room of supercharged people.

“Those left?” asked Diana skeptically. Darcy shushed her immediately, but it was too late.

Coulson’s eyes focused on the girls once again. “You have very… interesting relatives, Doctor,” he said. “Indeed, with very nice hearing.”

“It runs in the family,” spat Jane. “Answer the question. Erik and ‘those of you left’.”

The Agent rolled his eyes, as if severely aggravated by whatever Clint had let slip earlier. “Nothing that should concern you, Doctor Foster. SHIELD’s business is not your business.”

“You found HYDRA,” said Wanda wonderingly, and no, no no okay this was becoming a shitfest.

In less than five minutes, her family had probably become ‘a danger to the world security’.

“How about we all shut up and let the nice Agent speak, yes?” she said irritably. Wanda recoiled, and the girls flinched. Darcy’s eyes didn’t move from Coulon’s face.

“Doctor Foster, for now our priority is the Tesseract, you must move to safety.”

Jane shook his head. “How about no, Coulson?”

He frowned, “Doctor-”

“No, you listen to me. We are not going to be fridged in Norway while one of ours is in danger. We’ll get him back. So, you’re leaving this house and let us do what we do.”

Coulson’s hand went to his briefcase. “I’m afraid that’s not possible, Doctor. We have activated our best men on the case.”

For a second, Jane wanted to laugh at him, because fuck him and his best men, if they were as good as Agent mountain outside Erik was fucked. Then, she reconsidered. “We’re coming with you.”

Coulson blinked. “Ma’am, that’s not possible, it’s not an-” In a flash, Jane’s hand was at his throat. His gun was at her stomach, commendable really. Unfortunately for him, it wasn’t going to work.

“Jane, be reasonable,” said Clint.

“It wasn’t a question, Coulson,” she said. She was being reasonable. The man was still alive. “We’re coming, all of us, and we’re getting Erik back.”

* * *

 

“Coulson, why are there so many people on my ship?”

“Sir, we had a… situation.”

 _‘Situation’ was probably code for ‘I was about to get quartered, so I had to give them something,’_ Jane thought hysterically.

Coulson had one job, get her to Norway. Instead, he’d carried her and 9 other people with him on the Helicarrier, SHIELD’s now permanent base since HYDRA had been purged. It had to be a bitch to power up.

Nick Fury, SHIELD’s top dog as of the new calendar Post HYDRA was not amused, and neither was the woman behind him.

“I see,” Fury muttered. Oh whoops, she wasn’t listening to a word, hopefully they hadn’t said anything bad about her. She got twitchy up in the sky.

“As long as you stay out of my way, Foster, you can stay,” he finally said.

“Well, it’s not like you can drop us from up here, can you?” she smirked.

Fury’s only eye narrowed, but he said nothing more to her. “Hill, take them to the labs, don’t let them out of your sight.” He turned to the girls and growled. “I have eyes everywhere.”

The woman looked at them from top to bottom, raised one eyebrow and turned on her heels.

“Follow me,” she said briskly.

Okay then.

* * *

 

The moment Hill let them into the lab, the girls spread like liquid on a surface, covering every empty wall they could find.

Hill followed their movements like a hawk, her hand on the gun.

“They’re not dangerous, Hill,” whispered Clint. “They’re weird, I’ll give you that, but they’re not Loki.”

Hill huffed and removed her hand from the holster.

“I hope you didn’t really mean to compare my children to Loki, did you, Clint?”

Unbeknownst to them, Darcy had sneaked right to their left, her eyes flashing dangerously. Jane knew that expression, it was the one she had before she reached for her spoon.

Pietro winced.

“Of course not, Darcy!” Clint said, his high pitched voice making Hill goggle at the girl.

Darcy’s smile became the picture of radiant joy. “Oh, good!”

“That was close, old man,” said Pietro. They chuckled.

Hill wasn’t liking the humor as much as they were. “Barton, you know these people.”

Barton nodded quickly. “Oh yes. Hill, meet Darcy Lewis, Jane’s Foster intern and… I don’t remember, your cousin? Fuck, you’re all related differently. Anyways-”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it!” The woman marched into Hawkguy’s personal space, up until their noses were almost touching. In response, Clint raised his hands.

“Look, Hill, I-”

“Oh, we have company!” A voice interrupted them right before things were about to get interesting. Jane had never seen Hawkguy fight, she could admit she was a tad curious.

It was a man with a white coat, purple shirt and the tan skin of somebody who’d been under the sun too much. He also smelled… wrong.

In fact, his smell was sending her a lot of signals, more than what Natasha sparked, and she was the most super juiced individual she had ever met. _What the hell was he_?

“Hi-,” she started, her body subconsciously moving between him and Darcy.

The man noticed and flinched. “Ah,” he said miserably. “I’m Doctor Banner, I don’t think I-”

She recognized that name. Wait. “Doctor Banner!” she exclaimed. “We were colleagues back at Culver a few years ago! Doctor Jane Foster, astrophysicist.” She extended her hand as a greeting.

Things didn’t add up in her head. By all means, Doctor Banner had been her colleague alright and they maaaybe even talked once, but she remembered every smell she’d come in contact with and that man smelled completely different.

Doctor Banner shook her hand. “Nice to meet you, I don’t think we’ve been ever introduced.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Jane said. “You probably had more contact with my mentor, Doctor Selvig.”

His eyes sparked with recognition. “Oh yes, of course. Good man, Selvig.”

And that was as much small talk as she could stomach right now. “So, what’s the plan here?” she said with forced levity. If Darcy was put off by the fact that she hadn’t been introduced, it wouldn’t matter, at least until Hill was in the room and there were cams around them.

“Uh,” the man blinked. “We’re trying to locate the Tesseract by following the gamma radiation it gives off, and some of our… colleagues… have gone to Stuttgart to retrieve Loki, so they should be here soon enough…”

“Loki?!” Darcy asked, her eyes wide. “We’re taking the enemy _to our homebase_?”

Banner shrugged helplessly at her. “I don’t really know what to tell you, miss?”

“Darcy Lewis,” Darcy introduced herself, ignoring Jane’s warning signs. “This is my brood here, the girls and the twins.”

He smiled in polite confusion. “That’s a lot of kids.”

The girls giggled and Darcy coughed. “You know what I meant, girls.”

Just then, Hill’s comm made a muted sound.

Jane’s face opened into a grin. “Show time.”

* * *

 

Steve Captain America Rogers was a fool, and Tony Stark followed right behind.

At least they had a parachute (or a super suit).

Natasha looked behind her at the ragtag team that, according to Fury and Coulson, was supposed to be Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

A man in a tin can, as Darcy liked to say, and a man who had been frozen in ice for decades. To be completely fair in her assessment, Natasha amended, she had to count the fact that Steve Rogers _was_ the perfect project of Dr Erskine and Howard Stark, the famous supersoldier. So far, he had given her no impressive data to work with.

To top the situation, there was also a literal Norse God on the plane with them, glaring daggers at whoever dared to approach the elephant in the room, his brother.

“Guys, get ready to land,” she said into her comm, over the sound of engines.

They’d just flown to Germany to apprehend the hostile not a few hours ago, a _too_ successful capture if she said so herself, and the second alien had landed on her plane, almost sending them careening out of route. Of course, nobody had listened to her when she’d said to just let go.

And now, here they were, with a prisoner that looked incredibly spiffy at being held at gunpoint, two men that really didn’t want to work together, and the Heir to the Throne of Asgard trying to incinerate them all with his eyes. Great, just great.

“Take the prisoner to his cell,” barked Coulson as soon as they stuck their feet to the ground. “Romanoff, get the Avengers to the Lab, Banner’s already there.”

Natasha nodded. That was a relief, she’d had enough of Loki’s cold blue eyes laughing silently at her.

The sun wasn't even up yet and she wanted this mess off already.

“Ah, Agent Agent!” Stark was already saying and Natasha wished to tune him out. She’d had a hard time with the billionaire the first time around.

She started walking faster and managed to reduce his voice to a perfectly ignorable buzzing three seconds later.

“And this, gentlemen,” she said. “Is the lab. Make yourself at home.”

Doctor Banner was indeed working on his algorithm to track the Cube, his face fully focused on the results of the spectrometers activated on the labs on the ground.

Surprisingly, Clint was sitting cross legged on a table, staring at her with a gleeful and anticipatory expression. She felt the prickle of suspicion crawl along her spine. “Clint,” she nodded.

“Hi, Nat!” he exclaimed, waving and smiling. She had the immediate urge to go for her weapons. “Look who’s here with us! _Isn’t it great, Jane? All of us together!_ ”

She tensed.

This time, Rogers and Stark sensed the danger and went into a fighting stance as well, Stark trying to get to his suit inconspicuously.

“Romanoff?” asked Steve.

“Natasha!” Jane’s voice made her freeze, and then tentatively relax. For the first time, there was no shouted ‘you’ and no hand to her throat. That was nice, right?

Clint had anticipated a different reaction, though, and was now looking put out at the lack of screaming.

And then, her name was whispered in a chorus of giggling, and _what the Hell_.

“What are you all doing here?!” she asked. “You should be in Norway!”

Jane scoffed. “As if. Trusting SHIELDRA-excuse me, _SHIELD_ , to give us Erik back, _please_. Not that you’re not excellent, of course. _It’s the rest of them that makes it hard, you know?_ ”

“Well, aren’t you a gem, buttercup. I love you too!” Stark had taken offense. He was taller than Jane by the whole head, and yet at her flashing eyes he actually backed away. Natasha took notes, in case.

“Exactly,” smiled Jane. “It’s an all or nothing business with us, as you know, so we’re all sticking around until Erik is back with us.”

“Doctor Foster has been a tremendous help,” added Banner helpfully. Clint snorted.

“Who are they?” Rogers eyed the girls with no small amount of suspicion, and her respect for him grew. He’d clearly found them somewhat similar to her, because he was looking fleetingly at them, and then back at her.

“Friends. _All of you?_ ” she wondered instead. Because there was no way Jane the Danger was bringing Darcy into SHIELD-

But Jane, Wolf, rolled her eyes at her. “Yes, your girlfriend is around. She’s fixing… stuff, I guess. She disappears and reappears as usual.”

Stark coughed. “Oh, my God, you really have a girlfriend?! I thought you were just shutting me up!”

“That’s none of your business,” she stared at him firmly. It really, really wasn’t.

“Oh, come on, Romanoff, give me a hint now, you can’t leave me hanging! Tell me you have a picture, I need to see the girlfriend.”

Natasha stared at him harder, willing him to just disappear, but he was smiling unrepentantly at her, revelling in this moment. “Stark, let it go,” Rogers shook his head.

“Why? Because it’s out of place, Captain Prissy Pants?”

Steve Rogers narrowed his eyes, his hand clenching slightly.

“Wait, we have a Captain Prissy Pants?! What kind of codename is-NATASHA!”

Her arms were suddenly full of Darcy and she allowed herself a small smile. If it became a smirk when pointed in Stark’s direction, well, that was completely on him.

* * *

 

Jane was trying very hard to keep focus on her screen, but it was proving more difficult than expected.

For one, Wanda and Pietro behind her were trying to destroy Stark with their thoughts, which wouldn’t have been a problem, weren’t Wanda very capable of it. They knew it wasn’t Stark's fault, of course, but being on a _SHIELD base with Stark_ was testing their control.

Then, Darcy was flitting in and out of the lab doing who knew what, making the Agents at the door twitch every single time.

And, finally, the monitor was showing them Loki’s cell, and oh that was a distraction.

She watched as Thor tried to reason with his brother, talking about his grief over his death, when he almost managed to interrogate him, to reach him somehow, but no no avail. She felt kind of sorry for him.

“He’s pleasant, isn’t he?” muttered Banner.

“I kind of feel for Thor,” said Darcy. “Must be hard to think your brother was dead and then find out he’s alive and not doing so well.”

“That’s three out of three,” replied Jane without thinking. “I wonder where’s Frigga while her husband just banishes kids left and right.”

“Jane! That’s-”

“Rude,” she interrupted her friend. “But true. You can pin this one on Odin, Darcy. I can’t even imagine what it felt to fall out of the border of Asgard into the open space.” She shuddered. “In fact, most of this crap wouldn’t have happened weren’t it for Odin. We should all blame him more, it’s a good take on life.”

“So you’re saying we should understand Loki?” Banner raised one eyebrow.

“No.” Jane shook her head. “I’m just saying that falling out of your planet is bound to give you problems of all kind. Loki’s a nutcase and he was a nutcase even before, don’t doubt that. I haven’t forgotten.”

“Get in a line,” muttered Clint. At his side Natasha nodded.

“Wait wait wait wait!” Tony Stark was watching her with wide eyes. “Are you saying that Asgard is _flat_?”

“Jane, you can’t pin it all on Odin!” Darcy huffed in exasperation. “He’s not your favourite man, I get it, but-”

Jane slammed her hands on the keyboard, making everybody jump. “Yes, Stark, the Eternal Realm is flat. And Darcy, do you know what that thing is? The glowing cube?” 

Her friend shook her head. “It’s a Stone Odin didn’t want and left on Midgard. Now, can we all agree that the fact that HYDRA had the stone was a tiny bit Odin’t fault?”

Darcy gaped, speechless. Captain Rogers frowned heavily. “So you’re saying that the cube belongs to Asgard.”

“YES!” shouted Jane. “Yes. I was there when Odin buried it on this planet, for fuck’s sake. Thor’s not wrong when he says that the Tesseract must be returned. Humans weren’t supposed to find it. Period.”

A stilted, tense silence fell over the lab and Jane realized she had messed up, big time.

Stark and Rogers were looking at her like she was a fascinating specimen of human and pipe bomb fused together. Amazingly intriguing, but highly explosive.

Banner was looking anywhere but at her.

Clint and Natasha were just staring helplessly at her, as if they weren’t really sure what to do or say. Darcy had given up any pretense of normalcy and had the expression of somebody trying to exit this situation without an International Incident.

“Is your Dossier complete, Foster?” Stark asked nonchalantly. “Or, you know, your name’s not Foster?”

Jane huffed. “It’s Doctor Foster, Stark. I actually have two degrees in Quantum and Astrophysics. And yes, Foster is my name.”

“Okay,” he nodded placatingly. “Care to explain why then you come from Asgard?”

She curled her lips. “Cultural Exchange.”

“Cult-” he goggled at her. “Are you serious?!”

She shrugged. “We’ve visited your planet for centuries. It’s holidays for us.” She ignored Darcy’s ‘bullshit’ face.

Somebody cleared his throat, somebody else coughed.

“Okaaay,” Banner tried to smile. “How about we go back to… the cube?”

Rogers nodded. “Indeed. The cube is our priority, Doctor Banner. Doctor Foster, Stark.” He left.

“Where’s he going now?” Stark pouted. Jane fought the urge to roll her eyes.

“Somewhere where you’re not pouting at him, Stark,” said Darcy. “Do you need help with the computers?”

“We’re good… Lewis, right? Yeah, we’re good.” They all turned to their monitors.

After a few minutes of aimless typing, a scream was heard from the Loki-cam.

Their heads all whipped to the screen, watching as Loki and Thor had a shouting match with words that would have made the sky fall. Then Thor left, and there was silence.

* * *

 

“Jane Fenris, my friend!”

“I missed you, you big lug!” Ironically enough, she found that she meant those words. Yes, Thor had been a pain at the beginning, but he’d somewhat grown on her, and while she would never say they were best friends, she had a newfound respect for the man who had saved her and her friends from the Destroyer.

“I missed you as well! And Lady Darcy!” He threw his arms around her friend and spun her around while she squealed. “Heimdall told me you had children of your own, but I did not believe him! You must introduce us!”

“So…” Stark had gotten closer to them, and for once Jane completely sympathized with Natasha about the man. He was an insufferable brat. “You know each other?”

“Aye!” Thor laughed. “We met during my banishment. Lady Jane and Darcy aided me during my hardest times!”

“Uh-uh, fascinating.” Stark smirked. “So you didn’t meet on Asgard.”

“Nay,” Thor shook his head. “Lady Fenris had left before I was born, Man of Iron. She was Great General of our armies under the orders of my Sister, the banished Hela Odinsdottir.”

Tony’s jaw dropped. Jane gasped. Not only Thor had said Hela’s name out loud and had admitted to her banishment, but he’d also given her her proper title. She sent a thankful thought to Heimdall. She didn’t believe for a second this was Odin’s doing.

Behind Thor, Darcy smiled widely at her.

“So, Loki,” started Clint. “Natasha’s talking to him right now, but isn’t he a bit too… happy to be here?”

Jane frowned. “Indeed, he’s not even worried.”

“He has no reason to,” said Thor. “He commands an army from Outer Space, the Chitauri, ready to obey him and conquer Midgard.”

Jane choked on her own saliva. _Impossible_. On three thousand years a lot could have changed. “Thor, isn’t You-Know-Who Leader of the Chitauri?”

Thor nodded and Jane felt her hopes die a horrible death. “Indeed. The Mad Titan is still their Leader.”

“Who?”

Jane shuddered. “Thanos, the Mad Titan. Imagine a nuke, multiply it for the whole planet, then multiply it again exponentially. That is Thanos’s force if he puts his mind to it. Hela Odinsdottir didn’t dare oppose him.”

“Aye,” Thor nodded gravely. “If they find a way to give him the Cube, the Universe will be in great danger.”

“Wait,” Clint raised his arm up, as if in class. “So you’re saying that Loki is following orders and that an alien wants to destroy the world to get the cube and that’s why it needs to go back to Asgard?”

“Yes,” they said simultaneously.

“Well, _why didn’t you just say so in the first place_?!”

“You were using the Tesseract not two days ago!”

Clint scoffed. “What were we even doing with it?”

A clang was heard outside the Lab door. Fury marched in, with his murderous expression. Behind him, Natasha and Hill. Still standing outside the lab, though, was Steve Rogers, with what looked like an unpowered HYDRA stick. “Weapons.” He said. “That’s Phase 2, isn’t it, Sir?”

Every eye moved to Fury, incredulous.

But Fury had never occasion to defend himself, because with an explosion, the Helicarrier descended into chaos.

* * *

 

Clint Barton followed Rogers and Stark to the Helicarrier Engine, his eyes pointed to everything that moved.

Thor had gone to his brother, Jane had been sent to save Natasha for obvious reasons, and so he was on Extermination duty. Already two mercenaries had tried to down them as they turned a corner.

Splitting up was smart, of course. He knew that. He still twitched at the idea of leaving Nat down there with the Hulk and, well, Jane.

Jane was going to be careful, of course, Natasha had the ‘girlfriend’ gold medal to save her skin, but accidents happened and- He banished these thoughts out of his mind. Natasha was a grown ass woman who’d worked with Jane even before he was born.

A man with guns came at them screaming, only to be blown back by Stark’s repulsor beam.

“Let’s go!” he said. They nodded and ran faster.

“We need to reactivate the Engine by forcing the rotors,” Stark was saying. “Get to the lever system and wait for my signal. Then we’ll try to kick this baby into gear.” Okay, this he could do.

He and Rogers climbed on the side of the Helicarrier, the air a little more breathable now that they’d lose some altitude. “Where is that damned thing?” complained Rogers, scrambling to help Stark before he did something stupid.

A scream behind them made them whip around.

A man was writhing on the floor like a heel. In the middle of his stomach was a long curved knife.

It was one of Jane’s girls. “Move your asses,” she rolled her eyes at them. The gall of that kid- well. That woman. “We’ll clean up.”

Without waiting for a response, she was climbing down the wall like a monkey, knife between her teeth like a damn corsar.

“The fuck are you doing, whatever your name is?!” shouted Clint.

“Mam’s down there!” she screamed back, using her weapon like a Hammer to break the window. “We’ll just clear the way before she does. Move your asses, old men!”

And she was gone.

He blinked twice, and looked at Rogers, as if to check that no, he wasn’t hallucinating. Rogers just shrugged at him. “I’ve seen worse during the war.”

Which, fair enough.

Under them, Hell seemed to be breaking loose every three seconds. There were screams, explosions and a fair number of growls, which meant that the Hulk was with them, and he wasn’t happy.

“Starting now,” said Stark. “Get ready to pull that lever.”

It took Iron Man about one minute to get the Engine starting again, right in time to hear one gut wrenching, blood curling growl coming from the deck.

“What. Was. That?”

Clint’s whole body suddenly felt like lead. He had never heard this sound before, but he had a pretty accurate idea as to whom it belonged. This was bad.

“Guys, we need to get away from here, immediately.”

“What are you talking about, Barton?”

They ignored his protests, rushing to the deck to see what was happening. Worst, worst idea.

“Barton,” said Fury over his comm, “Loki has escaped, he fooled his brother. Get to the deck and help Romanoff with the Banner situation.”

“Sir, it’s seriously best if-”

But it was too late.

A huge green body flew across the deck, nailing and destroying one of the planes, and spitting out the wing of another.

“What on Earth-” said Rogers, awed.

He understood.

He’d seen Jane, Wolf from Outer Space, just once in his life, and it had been enough. Huge, as tall as the Quinjet they had on hold, her fangs dripping with saliva and her eyes murderous, Fenris was the most dangerous thing he had the displeasure of meeting.

The Hulk screamed, enraged. Fenris howled back, and it was a sound of pure ferocity and menace compared to an angry shout.

Hulk charged, right at the mouth of the Wolf, but as he flailed to control his strength, Fenris’s eyes narrowed with controlled focus. With a snarl, Fenris grabbed one of Hulk’s arms, and while he grabbed her neck to stop her, she twisted around.

The Hulk found himself suddenly in the air, _and Fenris moved_.

Clint watched as the green man became a spot and then disappeared from view.

Fenris roared her victory, then shook herself. ‘Everyone alright here? Natasha?’

Stark’s head plate came up with a clang. “Foster?!”

* * *

 

“You’ve hidden a lot from us, Doctor Foster.”

Had she? She stared at Coulson and Fury and yawned widely. She didn’t care one bit, not at all.

“I don’t see how any of it is your business, Fury,” she raised one eyebrow.

Fury wasn’t amused. “It becomes my business when people hide certain secrets, Foster. Or should I say Fenris?”

Jane shrugged, nonplussed. “Call me as you wish, I never cared.”

They’d been at it for more than she cared for, frankly. Thor had insisted he come with her and her family for the shitshow, and she was both annoyed and grateful for it.

Fury didn’t look pleased at her nonchalant attitude, because his eye moved to the girls, who were all huddled around Darcy and the twins. “About your family-”

Oh, he was going there, wasn’t he? She frowned. “What about them?”

The man sighed. “You were never considered for the Avengers Project. And you’re still not. You’ll never be an Avenger. But you can be useful right now.”

“Fury.” Thor rose from his seat at the central table. “Jane Fenris and her family are under the protection of Asgard, care how you speak.”

Fury frowned, but then relaxed. “I don’t care what you do. You don’t touch mine, I don’t touch yours. The world is in danger and you want your man back. You are a headache, Jane Foster, but right now you’re not even the worst of my problems.”

Jane smirked. “So, I help you and you help me?”

“So to speak,” he said. “Get them out of my sight, and as far as I’m concerned, SHIELD has never met them. But. I want Loki in chains.”

Thor frowned. “Loki will be tried in Asgard, as per our Law.”

“And when he’s out of my planet, he’ll no longer be my concern. Now, find me Loki, find the cube, and leave!”

Had Fury offered a handshake, Jane would have shook on it. It was going to be a bit annoying, getting the girls new identities so suddenly, but it was probably the best she was going to get out of the man.

“Sir!” Hill entered the room, perplexed at Fury’s resigned expression. “Stark found Loki, he’s in New York.”

“Well, now,” Jane rose from her seat, “it’s time I make myself useful, isn’t it?”

She turned to the girls and hugged Wanda as tight as she could. “Get them away,” she whispered softly.

Wanda’s eyes widened but she nodded. There was no way she was leaving them all inside SHIELD. No fucking way.

“Let’s go, Thor,” she said.

The man was at her side in a second. “Aye, it’s time we bring Loki to justice.”

They exited the room in silence and Jane would lie if she said she didn’t relish in the startled “THERE’S A BITCH WHO CAN TELEPORT IN THERE?!”

* * *

 

Oh, _this was fun_!

Another Chitauri soldier screamed in agony as she bit into him and severed his legs.

Her tail waggled happily and she didn’t even bother hiding it. She hadn’t had this fun in decades, not even the Nazis were so many and so resilient.

Hell, she’d missed the craziness of battlefields.

Her paws scraped the concrete of the building as she leapt from wall to wall, snapping her jaws and taking down as many as she could.

“Good job, Wolfie!” called Iron Man.

She growled at him. If her name became ‘Wolfie’ she was going to eat Stark and his super suit. She would even digest them, too.

The Chitauri army was coming from the sky, and they were too many. Stupid, very stupid, but too many of them. She could go on for a lot longer, but she was pretty sure the city of New York couldn’t, despite its brave citizens.

“The city’s taking too much damage!” Steve had clearly read her mind. “We must contain the portal!”

And then, from the sky, came the biggest flying whale Jane had ever seen.

“Oh, God,” said Clint.

“Regroup!” said Captain America. “Romanoff on the ground, Barton get to the roof. Stark, maintain a perimeter, we can’t let them spread!” He turned to her. “Foster, a hand?”

She huffed, moving dust in her wake. ‘No shit, Captain. I’m in.’

“Is there a spot for me?” a man shouted from afar. He was wearing an helmet and was on a decrepit motorcycle.

Jane squinted. ‘Doctor Banner?’

He smiled. “Hi, sorry I’m late.”

“You’re never late to a party, Doctor,” said Steve. “Now’s a good time to get angry, though.”

‘Oh, and Doctor Banner?’ Jane smiled, green Chitauri blood pouring from her mouth. ‘Sorry I launched you into the atmosphere.’

He laughed weakly. “I have questions, but for now, I’ll let you in my secret. _I am always angry._ ”

* * *

“You should come to my Tower, all of you. You and your weird people included, of course, Foster. Once we renovate it, it’s going to be the best building in the city. My treat, of course! We’ll have all the fun toys!”

After such a big battle, munching on the biggest shawarma scrap she’d ever seen, Jane Foster couldn’t really muster the energy to protest. The Tin Man had relentlessly tried to drive his point across, so much so that Clint and Banner had already given into his demands.

Rogers wanted to leave, and well, that was fair, Jane would have done much the same were she in the same situation. Hell, if she were to go back to Asgard now… She shuddered, she couldn’t even think about how different it would look in 3000 years.

Loki was going to be tried in front of the whole Aesir, with Odin as judge. Jane just hoped Frigga would step in sometime, maybe if she’d done so sooner they’d have avoided this whole mess.

In the end, it was almost ironic that she be the one to defend the crown and its Heir, but she didn’t have the force to bring herself to care.

Her friends were safe, Darcy was safe, Clint had one hearing aid busted and probably a broken rib but he was fine… and Natasha was looking at her a bit expectantly. “What?” she asked, chewing on her shawarma a bit more.

Her friend shook her head. “Nothing.”

It didn’t sound like nothing, but Jane let it go. A glorious battle had to be celebrated, not ruined by too much thinking.

“A toast, my friends!” called Thor, rising to his feet. While they did raise their plastic glasses, nobody else rose. “To peace!”

“To peace!” They muttered unconvincingly. Thor didn’t seem to care.

“Lady Fenris,” he addressed her when normal conversations had resumed (which meant everybody was eating silently, not listening to a word). “I have talked to the Allfather about your situation.”

Jane winced. Oh, oh no, that didn’t sound good at all.

“He would not rescind his banishment, I fear,” Thor hung his head. “But I shall try again, to let you come back to the Eternal Realm. To come home.”

And, honestly? Jane Foster, Wolf from Outer Space, Fenris, was genuinely touched by his offer. And tempted.

She took a deep breath. “You know what, Thor?” she half smiled. “I’m good, thanks. I appreciate it, but… This is my home now.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is it guys, the dreaded notes.
> 
>  **Notes on reality.**  
>  This is a serious matter to me, so I made as sure as I could that I could write about that properly.  
> Most people don't recover.  
> The story of the four girls recovering is amazing, but I want to be honest with you, 80% recovery is an absurdly high rate for that level of PTSD.  
> I purposefully left two girls without names and had them speak no lines at all, because expecting four girls tortured to that extent to be verbal and functioning members of our society is a fantasy.  
> I could play with the idea because of the Super serum, playing it off as miraculous healing in a world where magic is a Thing, but we mustn't kid ourselves because the outcome should have been much different.  
> Did I want them to have a happy ending? Yes.  
> That is not intended to diminish the pain of abused peolpe in any way whatsoever. I understand I will never be able to describe it, and I will never be able to fully understand their pain, but I tried.  
> Was it totally realistic? No. But no matter what was realistic, stories are wonderful because we can save everybody and be just happy about it.  
> For once, I wanted everybody (or most of them) to live.
> 
>  **Notes on the lore**  
>  Fenris is male, yes okay. But since I've seen Ragnarok in November 2017 I've wanted to play with him in my sandbox and this happened.  
> I have to thank the liberties the MCU took with the myth or I wouldn't have been able to bend it so much.  
> Odin's A+ parenting also needs to be mentioned. In fact, Odin has only created messes of epic proportions pretty much everywhere.  
> I mean, he managed to alienate three kids out of three and single-handedly gave HYDRA their weapons. I mean, it wasn't intentional, but yeah.
> 
>  **Notes on the languages**  
>  The German and Russian are mine. I'm rusty, but I've tried my best.  
> They should be all understandable from context, but if not let me know and I'll update the notes.
> 
> This is it guys, I can't thank you enough for sticking with me this long. You're amazing and see you soon with my next work.
> 
>  
> 
> **Please leave a comment and make my day? Please?**


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